FIPS (computer program): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:12, 13 May 2009

Revision as of 14:55, 25 August 2009

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'''FIPS''' (Fully Interactive Partition Splitter) is a [[DOS]] program for non-destructive splitting of [[FAT]] [[hard disk partition]]s.

Splitting partitions is an alternative to deleting the partitions and creating new ones using software such as [[fdisk]], the advantage of which is that the data is not lost. The most common use is installing multiple operating systems on a single computer.

FIPS is [[free software]], licensed under the [[GNU General Public License]] (GPL).

== Limitations ==

FIPS only works on [[primary partition]]s that are formatted using the [[File Allocation Table|FAT]] file system. Most new machines with Windows pre-installed use [[NTFS]], leaving FIPS obsolete for its intended purpose of resizing existing Windows installations to install Linux. In addition, FIPS cannot grow partitions due to technical limitations with the design, and partitions shrunk with it have some wasted space since it does not shrink the [[File Allocation Table]]. The filesystem to be shrunk must also be [[Defragmentation|defragmented]] before FIPS is run - since FIPS does not move data, any data near the end of the partition prevents it from being resized.

These limitations have caused it to be largely superseded by more modern tools with better filesystem support, more advanced resizing methods and more complete partitioning functionality, such as [[GNU Parted]] and [[PartitionMagic]]

== See also ==

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*[http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/fips/fips.html FIPS homepage]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fips (Computer Program)}}

[[Category:DOS software]]

[[Category:Free system software]]