Fat32 to FTSF..Worth Changing??? Help!

[Mike Jr]

My Computer is 2.6 GB Celeron with 512MB of Ram.I have an 80gb
Hadrdrive.

I built this computer and formatted the hard drive to FAT 32. My
computer is now loaded with programs.

I just bought another 80 gb hard drive which I have just formatted to
NSFT with the intention of loading it with the programs from the FAT32
harddrive. It seems NSFT is "better" than FAT32.

It will really take an extremely long time, more than I care to take,
to load all the FAT32 programs onto my new NTST drive. Hours and Hours
of work.

Question:

Is it worth making the change from FAT32 to NTFS?

Is there a simpler way to get the programs on the FAT32 to the NTFS
Drive

Will "Converting" the FAT32 on my my original drive to NTFS allow for
a fast means of changing that FAT32 to NTFS AND will it it be totally
sucessful or will I have some programs that will be "screwed-up" after
the conversion.

Would Partition Magic be better for converting??

Last but not least, what is your advice and what would you do??????
All comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

Mike Jr

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an
option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression
capabilities, no fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space
on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. 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 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 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

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just bought another 80 gb hard drive which I have just formatted to
NSFT with the intention of loading it with the programs from the FAT32
harddrive. It seems NSFT is "better" than FAT32.

It will really take an extremely long time, more than I care to take,
to load all the FAT32 programs onto my new NTST drive. Hours and Hours
of work.

Question:

Is it worth making the change from FAT32 to NTFS?

See discussion at www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfs.htm. My inclination would
be to format the new drive as NTFS, as you have done, and consider
converting the other at a convenient time, leaving programs where they
are. Having two hard drives in a machine is a good thing.

Is there a simpler way to get the programs on the FAT32 to the NTFS
Drive

You could 'clone' the FAT 32 partition onto the new, unformatted drive'
then convert and resize.. But I would keep things where they are and do
the conversion at your leisure

Will "Converting" the FAT32 on my my original drive to NTFS allow for
a fast means of changing that FAT32 to NTFS AND will it it be totally
sucessful or will I have some programs that will be "screwed-up" after
the conversion.

Any major piece of system work carries *some* risk, so a backup of any
critical files, just in case, is common sense; but normally, short of
things like power failure, it works fine.

But see www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm for advice on the conversion

Would Partition Magic be better for converting??

If you have PM 8 it will also do the necessary alignment of the FAT 32
in advance; but I would let XP do the actual conversion. Don't trust
third party tools for a provided system function