32-bit disk access
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32-bit Disk Access (also known as FastDisk) refers to a special disk access and caching mode available in older,
Windows 3.1 had an option in its 386 Enhanced Control Panel that would enable 32-bit read & write access in 386 enhanced mode. Usually, 32-bit read could be safely enabled, but 32-bit write had issues with a number of applications. 32-bit Disk Access was the feature that made it possible to page MS-DOS applications to disk. Without it, if the real mode disk code (the Int 13h handler) was paged out, the virtual DOS machine would loop forever.
32-bit disk access should not be confused with
32-bit versions of the Windows NT family of operating systems including the newer Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and later always have 32-bit disk drivers active, cannot use MS-DOS drivers at all, and the expression is not used for them.