Time: Thu Jun 05 11:44:26 1997
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	Thu, 5 Jun 1997 11:06:24 -0700 (MST)
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 13:04:48 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLF: FAT16 problem: demonstration and proof

>Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 19:46:30 -0400
>To: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
>Subject: Re: SLF: FAT16 problem: demonstration and proof
>
>Paul Andrew Mitchell wrote:
>> 
>> [This text is formatted in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.]
>> 
>> Grier,
>> 
>> Here are the results from your command sequence
>> on the two partitions I have on a 486 tower PC.
>> 
>> Many thanks for the great tips!
>
>Well, you came up with an even better way to use
>the commands I suggested, getting the actual dead
>space instead of just an estimation.  I must admit
>that I didn't think of doing that.  Good thinking!
>
>One point remains:  directories take space also.
>Since you're still on windoze v3.1x (and thus do
>not have long filenames), each directory entry
>(files, directory entries, and the "pretend"
>directories "." and "..") uses 32 bytes of a
>directory, which is also allocated in clusters.
>I don't know of an easy way to determine the
>total amount of space used by directories.
>
>Actually, I just thought of another point: "dir /s"
>doesn't count files with "hidden" and "system" 
>attributes, and it probably doesn't traverse into
>any hidden or system directories (I don't think
>that there are any under windoze v3.1x, though).
>
>Did you notice that "chkdsk" and "dir /s" disagree
>on the number of files and directories?  I haven't
>thoroughly investigated, but I'll figure it out.
>
>It would be a royal PITA, but there is a way you
>could recover an estimated 398 Mb of your large
>disk.  It would involve making a backup and 
>repartitioning, using something like Partition 
>Magic (available from Insight (www.insight.com) 
>for about $54).  You could divide it up into 3 
>partitions of just under 512 Mb (really would
>be 536780800 bytes or less) each (which would 
>change your cluster size to 8 Kb), and just ignore 
>the ~12 Mb that is left over.  Estimating that
>your 20065 files each waste half a cluster (it
>would probably be more in your case, since it 
>seems that you have a lot of small files), your
>dead space becomes ~82 Mb.  Add in the 12 Mb
>that you don't partition, and you have a total
>of 94 Mb wasted space.
>
>Like I said, a royal PITA, but if you start out
>that way (like I do), it's not too bad.  The only
>drawback is that you fragment the free space that
>you have available.  My main system has 4.5 Gb, 
>on three drives, divided up into 9 partitions!
>I can't wait for FAT32 drivers to be available
>for DOS, NT, and Linux, so I can consolidate
>(my first drive will still have 4 partitions
>do I can completely separate the OS's I use, 
>but it will still help.
>
>grier
>
>

========================================================================
Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S.    : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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