SWAPFILE.EXE May Not Recognize Logical Drives in Windows (76218)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Windows 3.0
- Microsoft Windows 3.0a
- Microsoft Windows 3.1
- Microsoft Windows 3.11
This article was previously published under Q76218
3.00 3.00a 3.10 3.11
WINDOWS
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SUMMARY
The Swapfile program included with Microsoft Windows may not recognize disk
drives with drive letters greater than C if disk partitioning methods other
than FDISK have been used, such as Disk Manager (DMDRVR.BIN), SpeedStor
(SSTOR.SYS), EDRVR.SYS, and so on. The Swapfile menu's Next Drive command
is unavailable (dimmed) if no drive other than drive C is recognized by
Swapfile.
The Swapfile program allows you to create a swap file on a particular
partition if that partition contain 512 byte sectors. A nonstandard hard
drive may have a drive C that is standard (512 byte sectors), but all
drives after C (D and greater) are nonstandard (sector size other than
512).
It is possible for a temporary swap file to exist on logical drives
such as drive D or E if Windows is installed on one of those drives.
MORE INFORMATION
The Swapfile program's 512 bytes per sector requirement is inherited from
the BIOS of the personal computer. Third-party partitioning utilities (such
as Ontrack's Disk Manager and Storage Dimensions' SpeedStor) circumvent
this limitation by translating all communication between the disk and the
BIOS. To ensure compatibility with the industry standard of 512 bytes per
sector, SWAPFILE.EXE was written to not support any type of disk
translation.
NOTE: If you use OEM versions of the FDISK command earlier than version
4.01, which allow partitions greater than 32 MB, you encounter this
problem. These OEM versions of MS-DOS include Wyse DOS 3.21, NEC DOS 3.31,
and Zenith DOS 3.3 Plus.
If the drive has been partitioned using a third-party partitioning
method, do not use the Swapfile program. Corruption of the file
allocation table (FAT) can occur, resulting in data loss. Using FDISK
is the recommended partitioning method when you plan to use Windows
utilities.
REFERENCES
"Microsoft Windows User's Guide," pages 520-531
Modification Type: | Minor | Last Reviewed: | 7/7/2005 |
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Keywords: | KB76218 |
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