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MS-DOS 6.22 and 2 GB partitions on CF card

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First post, by aries-mu

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Ok, so let's say I use an IDE-to-CF card adapter and a 8 GB CF Card on a 486 or Pentium 60 system, with MS-DOS 6.22.

Because of FAT16 limitations I can only make 2GB large partitions. So I'd make 4 x2GB partitions on the CF card.

Is there ANY downside/disadvantage/danger/inefficiency/performance decline/lifetime decline/Murphy's law that you can imagine in using a CF card so partitioned?
Would you recommend to just make one 2GB partition and that's it, leaving 6 GB unpartitioned and unused?

Let's say that my priority list is (decreasing priority):
1) Performance
2) Reliability

Thanks!

They said therefore to him: Who are you?
Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you

Reply 1 of 1, by tpowell.ca

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I'd recommend using Windows 98's DOS7 with FAT32 support, and using the entire 8GB for one partition. You can use a Win98 boot disk to create you partitions, format /s and copy the needed DOS files from the COMMAND folder in Windows.

That aside, no, using 4x 2GB partitions is not a problem other than being difficult to manage space as inevitably you will waste more this way, not to mention having C, D, E and F tied to that one drive.
Some may point out that you will wear out specific parts of the CF card due to the partition layout, but since DOS does not write to disk, and games don't use swap files, this is a non-issue.

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