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Fat32 or NTFS?
Surrey Dave - 16/2/06 at 07:33 AM

Just going to install a new 60gb hard drive in one of my laptops, normally use Fat32 but Windows XP doesn't format a partition over 32gb in Fat32.

What the pros and cons of using NTFS?

[Edited on 16/2/06 by Surrey Dave]

britishtrident - 16/2/06 at 07:38 AM

NTFS every time only --- fat file systems were OK in the days of floppy disks.

ned - 16/2/06 at 08:09 AM

ntfs is far more stable and secure..

James - 16/2/06 at 08:28 AM

NTFS is only way to go.

Security, stability, partition size.

Alright, so if the machine goes tits-up.com then you can't browse it in DOS but that's soon got round by sticking the drive in another machine.

Cheers,
James

mookaloid - 16/2/06 at 08:49 AM

ntfs for me

Surrey Dave - 16/2/06 at 09:14 AM

Yeah but ........if I have other machines running Win 98se (my fave!!) , I cant see the files on NTFS via an Hard disk caddy can I?

DaveFJ - 16/2/06 at 10:20 AM

In that case - partition your drive in 2........
NTFS system partiton and a fat32 shared data partition.....

Peteff - 16/2/06 at 10:33 AM

Are you getting confused? . A 32 meg partition would be useless. I use NTFS under Windows 2000 pro but I have a couple of old machines running 98se and Linux and they have single partition hard drives at least 6gig in size. Only XP and Win2000 limit fat32 partition size but they will read a larger fat32 partition, get someone running 98se to partition it as a single massive partition as it has no limit on fat 32 partitioning.
Just noticed you use 98se, use a boot disk from your old machine to format it. Over 32 gig fat 32 uses 32 bit clusters so it is more wasteful of space but it shouldn't affect you too much.





[Edited on 16/2/06 by Peteff]

[Edited on 16/2/06 by Peteff]

britishtrident - 16/2/06 at 11:19 AM

quote:
Originally posted by James
NTFS is only way to go.

Security, stability, partition size.

Alright, so if the machine goes tits-up.com then you can't browse it in DOS but that's soon got round by sticking the drive in another machine.

Cheers,
James


Thankfully a rare occurance these day -- but when up against it I now boot from an Ultimate Boot Disk or Knoppix CD and transfer the data off.

[Edited on 16/2/06 by britishtrident]

Surrey Dave - 16/2/06 at 01:33 PM

Yes! Pete (7.33am is early for me!!)I meant 32gb ,and yes I can use my Win98se boot disk to format the whole drive.

I just am on clear about the advantages, I still feel inclined to go with FAT32 .

It hasn't caused me grief before.....

Peteff - 16/2/06 at 02:12 PM

As far as I can see there's only the cluster size drawback. If you save a lot of small files you'll get a lot of wasted space.