FAT32 to NTFS

**Cromewell** · 04-12-2007, 01:33 AM

NTFS is usually better. I would use it unless you have a good reason not to (such as dual booting with win9x or something)

FAT32 is good for smaller drives like thumb drives.

PC eye · 04-12-2007, 02:20 AM

With nothing but older boards providing 98 drivers you can dual boot an older 9X-ME version of Windows but will have fun looking for any updated versions since there is no active support. Some 3rd party sites will carry the last of the last there. Updating an older system while preserving the original OS installed is done by slaving the original to the new XP drive. XP will easily go onto any Fat partition but you suffer from the loss of stability to some degree and performance overall.

For dual booting with an older OS the idea of having the Fat type dos driven OS on a separate Fat partition still allows access to the XP NTFS type by way of NT4Dos a small dos utility for accessing the NTFS partition from dos mode. For actually converting Fat to NTFS in XP the guide for this is seen at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881

How well will it work on an external drive would have to be tried out. Just backup any files first from it in the event you have to remove the present one for an NTFS replacement. At this point any older dos apps can be run through a virtual dos window for mounting the drive there. DOSBox does well for this even on Vista.

04-12-2007, 01:33 AM	#11 (permalink)
Cromewell Moderator Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 10,583	NTFS is usually better. I would use it unless you have a good reason not to (such as dual booting with win9x or something) FAT32 is good for smaller drives like thumb drives. __________________ You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in command here. www.userfriendly.org

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04-12-2007, 02:20 AM	#12 (permalink)
PC eye banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Inside a pc Posts: 20,803	With nothing but older boards providing 98 drivers you can dual boot an older 9X-ME version of Windows but will have fun looking for any updated versions since there is no active support. Some 3rd party sites will carry the last of the last there. Updating an older system while preserving the original OS installed is done by slaving the original to the new XP drive. XP will easily go onto any Fat partition but you suffer from the loss of stability to some degree and performance overall. For dual booting with an older OS the idea of having the Fat type dos driven OS on a separate Fat partition still allows access to the XP NTFS type by way of NT4Dos a small dos utility for accessing the NTFS partition from dos mode. For actually converting Fat to NTFS in XP the guide for this is seen at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881 How well will it work on an external drive would have to be tried out. Just backup any files first from it in the event you have to remove the present one for an NTFS replacement. At this point any older dos apps can be run through a virtual dos window for mounting the drive there. DOSBox does well for this even on Vista.