Mixing FAT32 and NTFS hard drives in the same computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Jensen
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David Jensen

Here's a question:

I'm running Windows XP home. My master HD is NTFS while my
slave is FAT32. The system runs fine as is - no dropped
frames - no crashes - nothing to complain about.

Is this a stable configuration, or should I reformat my
slave from FAT32 to NTFS???

Anyone have experience in this area???

Thanks in advance,

David jensen
 
Some will come on here and say that you must update the FAT 32 to NTFS.
While NTFS is supposed to be more stable than FAT, if you do not need the
greater security of NTFS or if you ever might need to place the second drive
into a Win 98 or ME machine keep it at FAT.

I would recommend that any computer be attached to an Uninterruptible Power
Supply/Surge Suppressor as all computers are subject to file corruption when
power drops on a drive when it is writing (and with Windows you never know
when it will be writing) to the hard drive.

With all computers disk drive maintenance (ChkDsk and defragmentation) on a
regular basis will keep your system operating at top efficiency.
 
David Jensen said:
Is this a stable configuration, or should I reformat my
slave from FAT32 to NTFS???
Click to expand...

Sure, it's stable. You mention dropped frames. One big
advantage of NTFS is that it doesn't limit you to 4 gig
files (like FAT32 does). When capturing video, this lets
you capture more than 18 minutes of digital video at a
time. If you don't
need it, no real need to switch as far as I can see.

Tom
 
Here's a question:

I'm running Windows XP home. My master HD is NTFS while my
slave is FAT32. The system runs fine as is - no dropped
frames - no crashes - nothing to complain about.

Is this a stable configuration, or should I reformat my
slave from FAT32 to NTFS???

Anyone have experience in this area???
Click to expand...
I have a master NTFS HDD with three partitions and a slave FAT32 HDD
also. I use the slave only for data file backups, backup Ghost images
and archives, plus a copy of my XP Pro CD updated with SP1, from which
I installed my XP Pro onto C:. Don't need to insert my CD whenever I
change the XP config.

If my master NTFS drive screws up big, I can always access the slave
drive via an MSDOS boot floppy and either restore data or master HDD
partition images, or even reinstall XP if necessary. I'm probably
paranoid, but I also keep backup images on CD as well, just in case
the whole computer goes up in flames.

Works fine, no probs. Mind you, if I used the slave HDD for progs and
data, I'd probably want to change it to NTFS for the added safety and
security, but I wouldn't want to risk losing access completely if my
master HDD failed badly.

I have made XP boot floppies so I can access and run XP if just the
NTFS master HDD boot sectors get screwed up - that's good insurance
and I recommend it. (Just format a floppy under XP (NOT an MSDOS
bootable), then copy ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from your XP
system root to the floppy, making sure you transfer the correct
attributes). That floppy will boot to XP on your machine if the HDD
won't boot and the XP NTFS partition is not damaged.
 
-----Original Message-----
Here's a question:

I'm running Windows XP home. My master HD is NTFS while my
slave is FAT32. The system runs fine as is - no dropped
frames - no crashes - nothing to complain about.

Is this a stable configuration, or should I reformat my
slave from FAT32 to NTFS???

Anyone have experience in this area???

Thanks in advance,

David jensen
.
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me; you can store all your private stuff
in ntfs and share your fat on a virtual network. Some
networks do the same for security reasons. I guess in
some ways the f.a.t slave is like another pc on a network
except just housed in one box. Not much experience, but
logically seems okay... would worry a bit if we were
talking single drive partitions, but that may be okay
too... It's possible to have 2 completely different
operating systems on one partitioned drive (as is fat &
ntfs) even as diverse as windows and linux.

Shame windows and mac aren't so compatible... still i can
dream can't i?!
 
I have XP installed on an NTFS partition and Win98 on a FAT 32 partition on
the *same* drive and it works fine for me.
 
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