FAT 32 to NTFS ? XP HE or XP Pro ?

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Lee

Can anyone tell me any hazards involved with converting your hard drive to NTFS from FAT 32?

Are you left with a "blank" drive ? Does this also mean you have to reinstall the operating system ?

Regarding a clean install, can anyone tell me where you can find your serial registration number in your system? I have either accidentally tossed mine or haven't looked in the right places. This would be a clean install from factory settings on XP Home Edition.

The reason I'm asking these questions is that I've screwed up by manually installing programs and would like a clean install with XP Home Edition. I'm also looking for improved performance running a P4 2.0 GHZ notebook on a 30 GB hard drive without having to upgrade memory or to XP Pro, though all input would be welcome.

Thanks !!
 
FAT & NTFS File Systems
http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfs.php

Can anyone tell me any hazards involved with converting your hard drive to NTFS from FAT 32?

Are you left with a "blank" drive ? Does this also mean you have to reinstall the operating system ?

Regarding a clean install, can anyone tell me where you can find your serial registration number in your system? I have either accidentally tossed mine or haven't looked in the right places. This would be a clean install from factory settings on XP Home Edition.

The reason I'm asking these questions is that I've screwed up by manually installing programs and would like a clean install with XP Home Edition. I'm also looking for improved performance running a P4 2.0 GHZ notebook on a 30 GB hard drive without having to upgrade memory or to XP Pro, though all input would be welcome.

Thanks !!
 
Lee said:
Can anyone tell me any hazards involved with converting your hard drive to NTFS from FAT 32?

Are you left with a "blank" drive ? Does this also mean you have to reinstall the operating system ?
Click to expand...

In addition to the article that Chris Lanier referred you to there is
one additional consideration.

When a FAT32 partition is converted to NTFS it is possible, indeed
quite likely, that the conversion will result in a 512 byte cluster
size being used for NTFS. This can result in performance problems
because of the vast number of clusters that results, especially on a
large hard drive. See http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm for
details
Regarding a clean install, can anyone tell me where you can find your serial registration number in your system? I have either accidentally tossed mine or haven't looked in the right places. This would be a clean install from factory settings on XP Home Edition.
Click to expand...

Windows XP Product Key finder:
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/keyfinder.exe

The reason I'm asking these questions is that I've screwed up by manually installing programs and would like a clean install with XP Home Edition. I'm also looking for improved performance running a P4 2.0 GHZ notebook on a 30 GB hard drive without having to upgrade memory or to XP Pro, though all input would be welcome.
Click to expand...

There is zero difference between XP Home and XP Pro in terms of
performance or reliability so unless you have a specific need for one
of the features that is included only in Pro there is no value in
upgrading.

Both XP Home and XP Pro are produced from the same source code base.

How much RAM do you have? 256 mb is the minimum for any sort of
decent performance from Windows XP and depending on how heavily you
use the computer, and many users find that going to 384 mb or even 512
mb of RAM does provide a noticeable boost.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
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