Hi, I'm thinking about changing the file system on my windows xp from the current: ntfs file system, to: fat32.
I'm worried though that the system will be unstable if I do such a change. I'm not generally worried about if I can't use the cryptography features which can only be used if ntfs file system is used.
Does anyone have an idea about this, or have the filesystem fat32 with Windows XP installed?
generally i would prefer to use a more open format such as fat32, ntfs in my experience is not very reliable (of course given the choice i'd just use journalled ext2 for everything). if your machine ever screws up then you don't want to have ntfs running on it.
Why do you wish to particularly want to change it to ntfs? anway, as far as i know it has no real crypted filies. Just imbeded windows policies for the directoires and files. fat32 has non of that.
Now I've finally changed my harddrive file system to fat32.(took a while)
Warning, don't bother with Partition Magic, because it's probably gonna give an error message about files being sparse, even when you didn't use NTFS compression and refuse to continue.
I have been wondering if that's a bug in Partition Magic.
ummmm......
AFAIK there is no way to switch to fat32 from NTFS short of a full reinstall. You also can't have files over 4 gb or partitions over 2tb with fat32, and lose a lot more space to overhead.
not to mention the loss of the transparent compression NTFS has, works wonders for log and text files.
And I've never seen anything that could be called a reliability issue with NTFS, which does have journaling, though I must say the *nix file systems are generally better developed, just not an option for an M$ install.
Hello user0zer, All, ici Ilja,
The remarks of Bateau are legitimed. You seemed to have Your system converted back somehow to fat32, hope You didn't lose any data in the process.
My experience is that it is very difficult to get a drive from ntfs to fat32. Best way is to use the drive repair software from the manufacturer of Your harddrive, using the option to write zero's (full) to the drive & after that partition & format (not quick) it from a command prompt. Otherwise You will end up with bad blocks on the drive, chance it will anyway.
Other problem with ntfs is You can't use a startupfloppy to rescue (copy) Your data to another (hard)drive (on fat32) after a disaster. You have to hope & pray XP will reinstall without destroying existing data.
Ilja._\\//