It depends on the computer. I can get Compaq DOS 3.31 to use a single 2GB partition on my XT-clone computer, but even the 512MB CF card I use with it is partitioned because with everything in a single partition it takes too long calculating the free space.

I use MS-DOS 7.1 on my main time machine, a 100 MHz Pentium. It has a 120 GB drive in a single FAT32 partition, so lots of space for games 😀

I use FAT32 capable DOS (MS-DOS 7.1), but I sometimes switch for experimentation purposes, so I've got a smaller partition for DOS and it's drivers along with a large partition for the rest of my software. It keeps the Ghost images of the DOS partition reasonable in size.

Mine has 4 FAT partitions (2GB each) and the rest of the 80GB drive is 2 FAT32 partitions.

It's a leftover from an old DOS6 PC, where the total limit is ~8GB, and actually a little less, so the last FAT partition was originally smaller than 2GB.

There is little reason to do it this way, though. Phil's setup is much better. But I cannot be bothered rearranging all my batch files and menus which are used to certain games being on D, others on E and so forth.

I am aware that there are games that are poorly hardcoded to look for the optical drive on D, but I never encountered them personally. Or if I did, they were hacked.

I'm using a 20GB drive, but only a single 2GB partition on it. I've got 750MB free on it, so I'm in decent shape and if push came to shove I could always add 2GB partitions as needed, with the caveat that I might have to adjust any games hard-coded to look for the optical drive on D:

Yeah, I'm not sure about which games will only work with optical on D, but it is something I hear about.

No, why do this? When I'm using dos <=6.22 and not some windows "dos" I just create as many 2GB partitions as I need. For these systems 8GBs are enough to accommodate all the software you might want for the platform and for what concerns the CDROM's drive letter I've never come across any game that absolutely demands to find it as D:. Not saying that such a game doesn't exist, but it's not common at all if not super-rare. I guess I can live without that picky game instead of compromising a whole machine.

Single 2GB partiton since all my DOS/Win3 stuff fits in it.

One of my DOS PCs has a 20 GB HDD and can mount USB sticks up to 32GB.
The other one has 2x160 GB. To be fair, it dual boots Linux (only one drive is accessible from DOS.)

The benefits of FreeDOS + late-ish Pentium & PIII era hardware. B)

xjas wrote:

One of my DOS PCs has a 20 GB HDD and can mount USB sticks up to 32GB.
The other one has 2x160 GB. To be fair, it dual boots Linux (only one drive is accessible from DOS.)

The benefits of FreeDOS + late-ish Pentium & PIII era hardware. B)

I create as many 2gb partition's as possible on any given MS-Dos-6.22 installation.
Only because I can.

My main DOS machine (a Pentium MMX 233) is actually a multi boot machine with Windows 95 and 98 on it. It has three drives as follows:

80GB PATA: Windows 98, single FAT32 partition.
36GB SCSI: 2GB MS-DOS 6.22 FAT16 and 32 GB Windows 95 FAT32 partitions.
73GB SCSI: 2GB FAT16 and 70GB FAT32 partitions, for data exchange, ISO dump, general DATA storage.

I just do not use optical drives in DOS 😀

Yep, I like my 486 with a single 2 gig partition and the CD-ROM at D:. Mostly just nostalgia about the drive letter scheme. A 2GB CF holds everything I need for 6.22 and Win 3.11, and then I have the 98SE box that works fine for most of my higher capacity retro needs.

Ever since my 1st PC (around 1994 so that era of games) I have had OS on C:\ and Data on D:\ and never run into any games hard coded to look for a CD on D:\
Not saying there are not games out there, but its rare

chinny22 wrote:

I have had OS on C:\ and Data on D:\ and never run into any games hard coded to look for a CD on D:\

That has been my experience and my approach as well. Splitting between the OS and the data is generally good practice, IMO, especially for modern OSs more complex than DOS. In case of major OS failures you can more easily experiment/debug/reinstall, without worrying that your data may be compromised.

The DOS PC I am gaming with right now only has a 20MB HDD. 😀

I do, basically just because I rarely play more than one game at a time on old systems, heh. So space isn't much of a concern.