--- Lawrance Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > But no matter how hard I try, I can't format it for > 64K. > > I get an error message saying that this block size > is too big. > > The command that I use from a command.com window > within Windows 2000 is: > format (drive letter): /fs:FAT32 /v:EOS_DIGITAL > /a:64K > > It starts the format, but when it gets to 99%, it > coughs up that error. > > Very frustrating...... !!!!
Lawrence, If you do a FORMAT /? command at the command prompt, you will see somewhere in the middle the following message: QUOTE>>> Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the following restrictions on the number of clusters on a volume: FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526 FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 4177918 <<UNQUOTE What this basically means that the smallest disk size that is possible with FAT32 and cluster size 64K is: 65536 * 65526 = 4,294,311,936 Bytes. Now, technically speaking, even though you have a disk of 4GB, it is well known that disk manufacturers rarely manufacture disks with capacities that are actually multiples of 1024 (the binary equivalent of a 1000 in decimal) as they should be. Here is what I mean: The actual capacity of Hitach 4 GB will simply mean decimal 4GB = 4,000,000,000 Bytes. However, in terms of computer memory, it should actually be: 4 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 4294967296 Bytes: almost 290MB more than it actually is. (See here : https://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/micro/micro3k4.htm ) Hence the actual capacity of the 4GB disk in binary terms is: 4,000,000,000 / (1024 * 1024 * 1024) = 3.7252902984619140625 GB !!! All this could mean for you is that the total disk capacity may very well be a tad smaller than the smallest possible with a 64K Cluster as per the spec by Microsoft, I don't know. Since I do not have that particluar disk I cannot verify that. Then again, I could be barking up the wrong tree here :) You can try choosing a smaller cluster size to ensure that you number of clusters will fall in the range specified by MS ! - Harman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
