FAT32 and NTFS with XP

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spider

I have an existing Hard Drive that is FAT32. I've
installed a new HD and can I format it as NTFS without
causing myself problems?
The new drive will become my new Boot drive.
I would like to use the old (original) drive as storage.
Can it remain FAT32?
 
Greetings --

WinXP can read FAT12 (the file system used on 3.5" diskettes),
FAT16, FAT32, CDFS (the file system used on most CDs), and NTFS with
equal facility. Further, the file system on any one disk/partition or
diskette has absolutely no affect upon the operating system's ability
to read other compatible file systems on other disks/partitions.


Bruce Chambers
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A word of warning about having NTFS on C: and FAT32 on D:



DOS doesn't recognize NTFS partitions and will reorder your drive letters
(not permanently.just while you're in DOS).



If you boot from a floppy and "Format C:" you'll actually be formatting D:
 
Greetings --

Even granting that what you say is true, what does that have to do
with WinXP? There is no real-mode MS-DOS present, and one normally
doesn't use a boot floppy to format a WinXP installation, one uses the
WinXP installation CD.

Bruce Chambers
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Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 20:09:53 -0700, "Bruce Chambers"
Even granting that what you say is true, what does that have to do
with WinXP? There is no real-mode MS-DOS present, and one normally
doesn't use a boot floppy to format a WinXP installation, one uses the
WinXP installation CD.
Click to expand...

It's a good heads-up; something that users should be aware of :-)

You may use DOS mode tools to format > 32G volumes to FAT32, given
that XP is too useless to do this properly. So I see the relevance.


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spider said:
I have an existing Hard Drive that is FAT32. I've
installed a new HD and can I format it as NTFS without
causing myself problems?
The new drive will become my new Boot drive.
I would like to use the old (original) drive as storage.
Can it remain FAT32?
Click to expand...


Yes - XP will install on either type, and can work with any mix. The
only constraint is that it will not itself create or format a FAT 32
partition bigger than 32GB - but you don't want to
 
I only mentioned it as a caution. The normal way isn't always the way people
go about it, and people have been burned by the reorder... as for the DOS
reference, it's just easier to say "dos" than elaborate on the differences
of NT and 9x... :)
 
spider wrote:
Click to expand...
Yes - XP will install on either type, and can work with any mix. The
only constraint is that it will not itself create or format a FAT 32
partition bigger than 32GB - but you don't want to
Click to expand...

Actually, you might - and if you do, BING will do the trick very
nicely. You don't have to install it as a boot manager; if you
cancel, it will go into the partition tools section you need. Say Yes
to "do you want to convert to NTFS?" even if you don't (for now), and
if you ever do, you won't get stuck with 512-byte clusters.

If your HD is < 100G, you can use WinME's FDisk and Format, or the
bugfixed FDisk for Win98 and Win98's Format. You can use Win95 SR2's
Format as well, if you want to.

If your HD is < 60G, you can use standard Win95 SR2 or Win98 FDisk and
Format, even in their unfixed forms.

I would not run a large HD as one big FAT32 C:, or any other sort of
one big C: for that matter (irrespective of the file system). I
happily use large FAT32 volumes (up to 120G) for data volumes other
than C:, and it works fine. I prefer a small and lean 7.99G FAT32 C:


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