NT Backup and the FAT32 File System

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I have a partition [FAT32 File System] that I back up using NT Backup, but I
am obliged to do it with multiple backups as I am backing up 8-9GBs and am
stymied by the 4GB maximum inherent with NT Backup/FAT32.

Is there any way for me using NT Backup to accomplish this process in a
single backup?
 
then buy a specific backup app

Ron said:
"You will have to back it up to an NTFS volume."

If by that you mean I would need to convert the File System from FAT32 to
NTFS [?], that just isn't an option right now...

--
Ron


John John said:
Not on a FAT32 partition. You will have to back it up to an NTFS volume.

John
I have a partition [FAT32 File System] that I back up using NT Backup, but I
am obliged to do it with multiple backups as I am backing up 8-9GBs and am
stymied by the 4GB maximum inherent with NT Backup/FAT32.

Is there any way for me using NT Backup to accomplish this process in a
single backup?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
It doesn't matter what application you use the FAT32 4 GB limit is a limit
of the file system not the program. There is no way around this other than
using a different file system that supports larger files or a program that
can split the backup into a series of smaller files.
 
How big is the hard drive? Can you partition it so that you can create an
NTFS partition for backups?

John John said:
Not on a FAT32 partition. You will have to back it up to an NTFS volume.

John
I have a partition [FAT32 File System] that I back up using NT Backup,
but I am obliged to do it with multiple backups as I am backing up 8-9GBs
and am stymied by the 4GB maximum inherent with NT Backup/FAT32.

Is there any way for me using NT Backup to accomplish this process in a
single backup?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Ron said:
"You will have to back it up to an NTFS volume."

If by that you mean I would need to convert the File System from FAT32 to
NTFS [?], that just isn't an option right now...
Click to expand...

May I ask WHY converting from FAT32 to NTFS is not an option? It won't
affect any programs or data you have, and neither will it affect access
from any networked machine, so I would be interested as to why you can't do
that....
 
Ron said:
I have a partition [FAT32 File System] that I back up using NT Backup, but I
am obliged to do it with multiple backups as I am backing up 8-9GBs and am
stymied by the 4GB maximum inherent with NT Backup/FAT32.

Is there any way for me using NT Backup to accomplish this process in a
single backup?
Click to expand...


Convert to the NTFS file system. It's FAT32 that has a 4 Gb file size
limitation.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an
option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression
capabilities, no fault tolerance, so support for files larger than 4 Gb
(videos, anyone?), and a lot of wasted hard drive space on volumes
larger than 8 Gb in size. (Just try finding a hard drive that small,
nowadays.) The only reason I can think of to remain with FAT32 would be
if you anticipated a high likelihood of having to connect that drive to
a Win9x machine. But your computing needs may vary, and there is no
hard and fast answer.

To answer your questions without getting too technical is
difficult, but has been handled quite well by the late Alex Nichol in
the article here:

FAT & NTFS File Systems in Windows XP
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfs.htm

Somewhat more technical information is here:

Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314463

Choosing Between File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp

NTFS file system
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/

You can safely convert your current hard drive to NTFS whenever
desired, without having to format the partition and reinstall
everything. As always when performing any serious changes, back up any
important data before proceeding, just in case. A little advance
preparation is also strongly recommended, so you can avoid any
performance hits caused by the default cluster size:

Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

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