Fat 32 and NTFS

[man nguyen]

Please clear my confusion...
I read Windows book and it states that NTFS can not see
Fat32 and vice versa. Is that unclear, because I can
access NTFS on an XP PC from Win98 PC and from XP PC to
Win98 PC with no difficulty.
The books I have read says I should format NTFS for system
files in NT machine and Fat16 for sharing file
Anyone can help giving me a good explanation?
Thanks,

MMN

 

[Guest]

Well if you were shareing that fat16 partition and were worried of security youd have no chance in protecting that drive, winxp uses just ntfs for the boot and system files, along with windows 2000 server/pro windows nt supports fat16 and fat32 but not ntfs, then you can later change that but its kinda another flaw windows leaves for admins to fix. but your wondering if your ntfs permisions will carry over to the next machine, that is no compression and encryption are not supported in fat32 which is mainly for ms-dos and windows apps...but as for viewing the file thats visable, but no carry over from both drives for securtiy

 

[aragorn]

I cannot see my NTFS drives from my FAT drive, but vice
versa...I see everything from my NTFS drives.
I only could access the NTFS drives from a server2003
installation on FAT32, but not from win98.

 

[Malke]

Well if you were shareing that fat16 partition and were worried of
security youd have no chance in protecting that drive, winxp uses just
ntfs for the boot and system files, along with windows 2000 server/pro
windows nt supports fat16 and fat32 but not ntfs, then you can later
change that but its kinda another flaw windows leaves for admins to
fix. but your wondering if your ntfs permisions will carry over to
the next machine, that is no compression and encryption are not
supported in fat32 which is mainly for ms-dos and windows apps...but
as for viewing the file thats visable, but no carry over from both
drives for securtiy

This is untrue. NTFS can read and write to FAT32 and FAT16. FATxx cannot
read NTFS. XP can be set up with a file system of either FAT32 or NTFS,
although NTFS is preferable.

Malke

 

[Tim Slattery]

Please clear my confusion...
I read Windows book and it states that NTFS can not see
Fat32 and vice versa. Is that unclear, because I can
access NTFS on an XP PC from Win98 PC and from XP PC to
Win98 PC with no difficulty.

If a Win98 machine is networked to an XP machine, the Win98 machine
will not know or care what file system the XP machine is using. (In
face, it doesn't even know whether the network shares are partitions
or directories.) The XP machine will read its own disks and report the
results via the network connection. The results will appear correctly
on the Win98 machine.

If there is an NTFS partition on the Win98 computer - which happens if
you are running a dual boot system - the Win98 system won't be able to
see it. A WinXP system will be able to see partitions using FAT16,
FAT32, or NTFS.

The books I have read says I should format NTFS for system
files in NT machine and Fat16 for sharing file
Anyone can help giving me a good explanation?

Forget FAT16, you don't want to use that for any modern (ie HUGE) hard
disks. Windows XP can use FAT32 and NTFS. You can make all your
partitions one or the other, or use one system on some partitions and
the other on other partitions. NTFS is a better choice for very large
partitions, XP won't even offer to create FAT32 partitions larger than
32GB.

Your confusion comes from the "sharing" term. The book you're reading
seems to be concerned with dual-boot systems. Networking is very
different.

 

[Mike Kolitz]

I'm not sure you're thinking about it correctly.
I'm assuming that you mean while you're running Windows 98, you can't see
local NTFS drives, which is correct. Windows 98 cannot read local NTFS
drives. It has nothing to do with FAT being unable to see NTFS - FAT is just
a file system. It's the OS that can't read the other file systems.

While you're in Windows 2000 or Windows XP (or even Windows NT), you can see
both local NTFS and local FATxx drives.

In either OS, you can see FAT or NTFS volumes over a network connection,
because the file system is abstracted away by the networking layer.

--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

Remember to check Windows Update often,
and apply the patches marked as Critical!
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Please clear my confusion...
I read Windows book and it states that NTFS can not see
Fat32 and vice versa.

Either the book is wrong, or you've read it incorrectly. First of
all, note that NTFS doesn't see *anything* nor does FAT32. It's
the job of the operating system to see file systems, not the file
system itself.

Windows 98 and Me can see FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12. Windows XP can
see all of those *and* NTFS. Each operating system can see any of
the files systems it supports in any and all combinations.

So Windows XP can, for example, see NTFS on one drive, FAT32 on a
partition on a second drive, and FAT16 on second partition on
that second drive. It can do this all at the same time and
regardless of what file system it itself is installed on.

Is that unclear, because I can
access NTFS on an XP PC from Win98 PC and from XP PC to
Win98 PC with no difficulty.

Across a network, it's completely different. It doesn't matter
what file systems the operating system can see, because the file
systems don't get sent over the network, just the data in the
files. So even though Windows 98 can't see an NTFS drive locally,
it can get data across a network from an NTFS drive on a Windows
XP computer.

The books I have read says I should format NTFS for system
files in NT machine and Fat16 for sharing file
Anyone can help giving me a good explanation?

In general, NTFS is the best choice, and most people running XP
should use it. Almost the only exception is if you are
dual-booting to Windows 98 or Me, which won't be able to see the
NTFS partition(s).

FAT16 is pretty much obsolete; except for very unusual special
circumstances, almost nobody should use it.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Well if you were shareing that fat16 partition and were worried of
security youd have no chance in protecting that drive, winxp uses
just ntfs for the boot and system files, along with windows 2000
server/pro windows nt supports fat16 and fat32 but not ntfs, then you
can later change that but its kinda another flaw windows leaves for
admins to fix. but your wondering if your ntfs permisions will carry
over to the next machine, that is no compression and encryption are
not supported in fat32 which is mainly for ms-dos and windows
apps...but as for viewing the file thats visable, but no carry over
from both drives for securtiy

That's a very long muddy sentence. But you said "winxp uses just
ntfs for the boot and system files, along with windows 2000
server/pro windows nt supports fat16 and fat32 but not ntfs."
That is *not* correct. All of those support NTFS.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

You're operating under a severe misapprehension. One file system
does _not_ read another. Instead, file systems are read (and written
to) by the operating system. If that is actually what the "Windows
book" said, you should throw that particular book away and get one
written by someone who knows better.

WinXP can read FAT12 (the file system used on 3.5" diskettes),
FAT16, FAT32, CDFS (the file system used on most CDs), and NTFS with
equal facility. Further, the file system on any one disk/partition or
diskette has absolutely no affect upon the operating system's ability
to read other compatible file systems on other disks/partitions.

Also, the file systems on the various computers communicating over
a network are completely irrelevant, as none of the individual
computers' operating systems ever directly access the other computers'
hard drives. Instead, a computer sends a "request," if you will, for
the desired data, and the operating system of the host ("receiving")
computer accesses its own hard drive (whose file system it obviously
can read) and then sends that data back to the requesting computer as
neutral packets of information that are completely independent of the
file systems on the respective computers. After all, don't you use a
Windows-based PC (whether it's FAT32 or NTFS) to access data stored on
the Internet's mostly Unix servers, which use a completely different
file system?

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


Bruce Chambers

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