Windows 98 Fat32ebd.txt File

ID: Q186892

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition

SUMMARY

This article contains a copy of the information in the Fat32ebd.txt file included with Windows 98. This file is located in the Tools\Mtsutil\Fat32ebd folder on the Windows 98 CD-ROM.

MORE INFORMATION

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Microsoft Windows 98 README for the

FAT32 Emergency Boot Disk

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(c) Copyright Microsoft Corporation, 1998

This document provides complementary or late-breaking information to supplement the Microsoft Windows 98 documentation.

How to Use This Document

To view FAT32EBD.txt on-screen in Notepad, maximize the Notepad window.

To print FAT32EBD.txt, open the file in Notepad or another word processor, then on the File menu, click Print.

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INTRODUCTION
HOW TO CREATE A FAT32 EMERGENCY BOOT DISK
CREATING FAT32 DRIVES
KNOWN ISSUES
MORE INFORMATION

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INTRODUCTION

The FAT32 Emergency Boot Disk (EBD) provides a virus-free means for starting and troubleshooting a computer, as well as a means for partitioning large drives with the FAT32 file system.

The utility that creates the EBD, FAT32EBD.EXE, writes an image of a known-good boot sector that was scanned for viruses. A virus-free boot disk can be used to troubleshoot systems that you suspect are infected with a virus, or to create a large partition for Windows 98.

HOW TO CREATE A FAT32 EMERGENCY BOOT DISK

The utility that creates the FAT32 EBD, FAT32EBD.EXE, can be run from MS-DOS or within Windows. It will prompt you to insert a 1.44 MB floppy disk in the A:\ drive and then prompt you to continue. FAT32EBD.EXE transfers the boot sector to the floppy to ensure there are no viruses. Next, the files for the disk are extracted from the WIN98*.CAB files and transferred to the floppy.

NOTE: If you use this utility in MS-DOS, you must load the Himem.sys file.

Requirements

Access to the Windows 98 CD-ROM

Access to a 1.44 MB floppy drive on A:\

1.44 MB floppy disk

Steps to create the FAT32 EBD using Windows 95 or Windows98

Click the Start button and select Windows Explorer from the Programs menu.

Select the CD-ROM drive containing the Windows 98 CD-ROM.

Select and double-click the \Tools folder to expand it. Expand the subdirectory, \MTSutil, and then its subdirectory, \FAT32EBD.

Double-click FAT32EBD.EXE and follow its prompts to create a FAT32 EBD.

Write-protect the diskette when it is finished creating the EBD to ensure a virus cannot write to the disk.

Restart the computer with the FAT32 EBD.

Steps to create the FAT32 EBD using Windows 3.x

For the best results, exit Windows and create the FAT32 EBD using MS-DOS. Please refer to the following section after you exit Windows.

Steps to create the FAT32 EBD using MS-DOS

At a command prompt outside of Windows, change to the CD-ROM drive containing the Windows 98 CD-ROM. For example, if your CD-ROM drive is D:\, you would type:

D:\ [press Enter key]

Change to the FAT32EBD directory by typing the following:

CD\TOOLS\MTSUTIL\FAT32EBD [press Enter key]

Run FAT32EBD.EXE and follow its prompts to create a FAT32 EBD. Run the utility by typing:

FAT32EBD.EXE [press Enter key]

Write-protect the diskette when it is finished creating the EBD to ensure a virus cannot write to the disk.

Restart the computer with the FAT32 EBD.

CREATING FAT32 DRIVES

In Windows 98, if you run the FDISK tool on a system with a drive over 512 MB in size, you will be asked whether or not to enable large disk support. If you answer Yes, any partition you create that is larger than 512 MB is marked as a FAT32 partition.

NOTE: The Drive Converter (FAT32) can be run if Windows 98 is installed. See online help for additional information.

KNOWN ISSUES

If you experience difficulty running FAT32EBD.EXE, please refer to the following list of known issues for the tool.

Invalid files copied to the EBD

If the files on the FAT32 EBD are 0 (zero) bytes in size, it may be the result of the TMP environment variable being set to the floppy drive, or insufficient conventional memory.

TMP environment variable set to floppy drive

Booting with a floppy disk may set the TMP environment variable to the floppy drive. FAT32EBD.EXE requires the TMP environment variable be set to a hard disk. If TMP is set to the floppy drive, FAT32EBD.EXE may create a boot disk with zero byte files.

Determine the current status of the TMP by typing:

SET [press Enter key]

Set the TMP environment variable to the hard drive by typing:

SET TMP=C:\ [press Enter key]

Insufficient conventional memory

FAT32EBD.EXE relies on the Windows 98 EXTRACT.EXE utility. EXTRACT requires approximately 520K of free conventional memory. Loading real-mode CD-ROM drivers and DriveSpace/DoubleSpace compression drivers can reduce the amount of conventional memory. To workaround this, modify your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to load devices high.

---- Example CONFIG.SYS ----

Device=C:\windows\himem.sys
Device=C:\windows\Emm386.exe noems
Dos=high,umb
Devicehigh=C:\CDROM\oakcdrom.sys /d:mscd001
Devicehigh=C:\Windows\drvspace.sys /move

---- Example AUTOEXEC.BAT ----

LH C:\CDROM\mscdex.exe /d:mscd001

Bad or corrupted Floppy Disk

If FAT32EBD.EXE generates a "Write fault" or "Can not write to Disk in Drive A:\" error, you may be using a damaged floppy disk.

Slow performance creating Boot Disk

FAT32EBD.EXE extracts files for the FAT32 EBD from the Windows 98 CD. EXTRACT.EXE may run slowly outside of Windows. To improve the performance of FAT32EBD.EXE outside of Windows, load SMARTDRV.EXE.

NOTE: The Windows 98 SMARTDRV.EXE may be loaded from the \TOOLS\OLDMSDOS folder on the Windows 98 CD.

Windows 98 Startup Disk

The FAT32 EBD does not include all of the troubleshooting tools available on the Windows 98 Startup Disk. Microsoft recommends creating a Windows 98 Startup Disk during Windows 98 setup, or from the Startup disk tab in the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs.

A computer virus is an executable file designed to replicate itself and avoid detection. A virus may try to avoid detection by disguising itself as a legitimate program. Viruses are often rewritten and adjusted so that they will not be detected. Anti-virus programs must be updated continuously to look for new and modified viruses.

When a computer boots (or starts), it looks to the boot sector of the hard disk before loading the operating system or any other startup files. A boot sector virus is designed to replace the information in the hard disk's boot sectors with its own code. When a computer is infected with a boot sector virus, the virus' code is read into memory before anything else. Once in memory, it can replicate itself onto any other disks that are used in the infected computer.

Description of FAT32

Windows 98 provides an updated version of the File Allocation Table file system, called FAT32. This updated file system allows for a default cluster size as small as 4K, as well as support for EIDE hard disk sizes in excess of 2 GB.

A FAT32 volume cannot be compressed using Microsoft DriveSpace or DriveSpace 3.

FAT32 volumes cannot be accessed if the computer is started using another operating system.

MS-DOS, Windows NT 3.x and 4.x, Windows 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x, and Windows 95 (950) may not recognize a FAT32 volume.

NOTE: Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 (1111) supports FAT32.

FAT32 provides the following enhancements over previous implementations of the FAT file system:

Supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size.

FAT32 uses smaller clusters (that is, 4K clusters for drives up to 8 GB in size), resulting in 10 to 15 percent more efficient use of disk space relative to large FAT16 drives.

FAT32 has the ability to relocate the root directory and use the backup copy of the FAT instead of the default copy. In addition, the boot record on FAT32 drives has been expanded to include a backup of critical data structures. This means that FAT32 drives are less susceptible to a single point of failure than existing FAT16 volumes.

The root directory on a FAT32 drive is now an ordinary cluster chain, so it can be located anywhere on the drive. For this reason, the previous limitations on the number of root directory entries no longer exist.

Additional query words: 98


Keywords          : kbreadme win98 win98se 
Version           : WINDOWS:
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: July 23, 1999