fat32 on windowsxp

LovEnPeaCE · Post by **LovEnPeaCE** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 6:23 pm

do fat32 hard drives work on windows xp?

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 6:48 pm

Yes. It does. XP prefers NTFS, but, the size cap on FAT32 aside, it's better than NTFS in many ways. Example: FAT32 doesn't become 99.6% fragmented doing a sequential write. (Yes, that actually happened to me with NTFS)

oldwrench · Post by **oldwrench** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:15 pm

I have a machine set up with two partitions to dual boot, fat32 on the windows 98 side and NTFS on the xp side. I often save or open files on the 98 partition when using xp, it causes no problems. I have several small programs I use on the 98 partition and they open and run fine using xp.

LovEnPeaCE · Post by **LovEnPeaCE** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:39 am

Kalium wrote:Yes. It does. XP prefers NTFS, but, the size cap on FAT32 aside, it's better than NTFS in many ways. Example: FAT32 doesn't become 99.6% fragmented doing a sequential write. (Yes, that actually happened to me with NTFS)

so does this mean that if i have a fat32 drive, xp will format it into a ntfs if i choose, correct?

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 11:07 am

LovEnPeaCE wrote:
Kalium wrote:Yes. It does. XP prefers NTFS, but, the size cap on FAT32 aside, it's better than NTFS in many ways. Example: FAT32 doesn't become 99.6% fragmented doing a sequential write. (Yes, that actually happened to me with NTFS)
so does this mean that if i have a fat32 drive, xp will format it into a ntfs if i choose, correct?

Well, I've heard it will try, but for me it's been so long I don't remember.

bum · Post by **bum** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 11:35 am

LovEnPeaCE wrote:
Kalium wrote:Yes. It does. XP prefers NTFS, but, the size cap on FAT32 aside, it's better than NTFS in many ways. Example: FAT32 doesn't become 99.6% fragmented doing a sequential write. (Yes, that actually happened to me with NTFS)
so does this mean that if i have a fat32 drive, xp will format it into a ntfs if i choose, correct?

yes, if you choose. however you can keep it as fat32 if you like. but from what ive heard, if you have a decent system, ntfs is both faster and ofers beter security than fat32

Brolly345 · Post by **Brolly345** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 5:42 pm

The only real problem I can think of with file systems and XP is if you only have a FAT type hard drive. FAT32 and NTFS work fine, NTFS being the newest. FAT only doesn't work because that, if memory serves me right, that system is pretty old. I think even Windows 98 needs FAT32.

Brolly345 · Post by **Brolly345** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 5:42 pm

The only real problem I can think of with file systems and XP is if you only have a FAT type hard drive. FAT32 and NTFS work fine, NTFS being the newest. FAT only doesn't work because that, if memory serves me right, that system is pretty old. I think even Windows 98 needs FAT32.

Zero · Post by **Zero** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:12 pm

Brolly345 wrote:The only real problem I can think of with file systems and XP is if you only have a FAT type hard drive. FAT32 and NTFS work fine, NTFS being the newest. FAT only doesn't work because that, if memory serves me right, that system is pretty old. I think even Windows 98 needs FAT32.

Actualy, even though we just never use it, I'm sure XP can read FAT, I don't think it will format it though.

-Zero

narcted · Post by **narcted** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:01 pm

XP can use FAT32. The problem is you won't be able to have files larger than 3.99 GB because the limit for the FAT32 format is 4GB. I have encountered this. It's a main reason why your DV capture won't go longer than 15 or 20 minutes or why you video files are broken up even if you never stopped the capture. You don't have these problems with NTFS because it does not have the file size limitation.

XP can format your drive to NTFS. The problem is that to format a harddrive it requires total erasure of data. If the drive you need formatted is your C drive with the operating system on it, you're pretty much looking at reinstalling the operating system. Yes, XP can also format drives to FAT32, but I don't know a reason you would want it that way.