fat32 drive > ntfs usb drive

[Guest]

Whoever built a computer for my boss put win xp pro on a fat32 formatted
drive. I have no idea why someone would do that in a fresh installation. I
have a USB drive hooked to this machine also formatted fat32. I want to
change this USB drive to a NTFS format, I will move the info off of it and
format it correctly. This is all to get NTBackup to work, as now I don't
really trust the limited edition of retrospect that came with the USB drive.
My question: will I have a problem restoring my data from the NTFS backup
drive to the FAT32 hard drive, if I need to do a restore. Eventually I will
format the hard drive to NTFS but until I get to that I need to know if I am
save.

Thanks in advance

 

[bud]

Whoever built a computer for my boss put win xp pro on a fat32 formatted
drive. I have no idea why someone would do that in a fresh installation.
I
have a USB drive hooked to this machine also formatted fat32. I want to
change this USB drive to a NTFS format, I will move the info off of it and
format it correctly. This is all to get NTBackup to work, as now I don't
really trust the limited edition of retrospect that came with the USB
drive.
My question: will I have a problem restoring my data from the NTFS backup
drive to the FAT32 hard drive, if I need to do a restore. Eventually I
will
format the hard drive to NTFS but until I get to that I need to know if I
am
save.

Thanks in advance

Fat32 will not recognize a NTFS partition. NTFS can see a Fat32 but Fat32
can not see NTFS. You would need to convert both to NTFS.

 

[Guest]

In theory, an OS like XP can see and transfer data on both types of file
systems transparently. In reality, a remoavable (i.e. USB) drive just has
limitations having nothing to do with the chosen file system. As long as it's
simply data storage, the transfer should be fine. Trying to do some system
work with it, like My Documents folders, or network drives may be a bit
harder. Still possible, but less reliable than a static drive in the system.

 

[Guest]

I don't really plan on using the usb as another drive, its strictly for
backup purposes.
I really want the main drive to be ntfs, but I will have to wait for a while
before I can make the change, just want to make sure that my backups will be
"restorable". Another question, if I make a image of the windows
installation on the FAT32 HD, say with Ghost, will I be able to restore that
image to a NTFS drive? I am not really familiar with Ghost, but that
scenario would sure save me a lot of time

 

[Guest]

What do you mean? The file system does not see anything, its the operating
system that "sees" the file system, and win xp can see both fat32 and ntfs
file systems. My question is more about if ntbackup will have a problem with
these 2 different file systems.

 

[Guest]

Ghost does a literal 'image' of the disk. I have no doubt that would include
the 'formatting' , which determines the file system. Ghost might copy that
image to the usb drive, but if it would, it would no doubt change the format
type. I've not tried it to know for sure.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Whoever built a computer for my boss put win xp pro on a fat32 formatted
drive. I have no idea why someone would do that in a fresh installation.

Lack of technical knowledge and experience, most likely...

I
have a USB drive hooked to this machine also formatted fat32.

External removable hard drives are about the only use remaining for the
FAT32 file system, on the off chance that they might have to be
connected a Win9x machine for data transfer.

I want to
change this USB drive to a NTFS format,....

If you're sure it won't ever need to be connected to a Win9x machine,
that's fine. Just be careful with the NTFS file permissions so you
don't accidentally render the drive inaccessible from other machines and
user accounts that might need to connect to it.

I will move the info off of it and
format it correctly.

That's a bit moretrouble than is necessary.

You can safely convert your current 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

This is all to get NTBackup to work, as now I don't
really trust the limited edition of retrospect that came with the USB drive.
My question: will I have a problem restoring my data from the NTFS backup
drive to the FAT32 hard drive, if I need to do a restore.

I shouldn't think so, no. The NTBackup doesn't use any sort of file
"image."



--

Bruce Chambers

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Fat32 will not recognize a NTFS partition. NTFS can see a Fat32 but Fat32
can not see NTFS. You would need to convert both to NTFS.

Your understanding is fatally flawed. The file system on one hard
drive doesn't read the file system on the other drive(s). Any and all
access to the hard drives is performed by the operating system.

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.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Guest]

Bruce,
Thank you for your informative answer, and for your post on "bud"'s
mis-information
Since I have the option, I am moving the files off of the external drive,
and doing a re-format. Saves me worring about cluster size. I am thinking
that I will eventually have to convert the c: drive to ntfs in order to make
ntbackup work properly. Any input on this issue of using ntbackup to backup a
fat32 hard drive to my ntfs external drive? Will it work?