File Conversion FAT-NTFS

[chris]

I have Win 2000 Pro installed on my primary drive (C:\) Today, I installed
the original hard drive with Win 98, as slave (E. I now realize that while
I can access the files on E:, I cannot boot the system to drive E for
technical reasons that are beyond me level of competence (Registry/Boot
Sector/BIOS). First, can I or should I convert the drive E- from FAT 32 file
system to NTFS? Is there any advantage to doing this? Would I be able to
load a new program into E with the file system converted or is my limitation
that I can only access the files on E, period. Thanks

 

[John John]

You could boot the Windows 98 installation with a third party boot
manager like XOSL (free) http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm or BootItNG
(shareware) http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html These boot
loaders are fairly simple to install and figure out.

You can convert the slave drive to NTFS but only if you decide that you
don't need the Windows 98 installation, Windows 98 cannot read NTFS.
Windows 2000 can read both NTFS and FAT file systems. The drive is
fully accessible by Windows 2000 regardless of the files system. There
are advantages and disadvantages to both file systems, FAT32 is faster
and can be accessed from DOS but has limits as to the number of files
that can be stored in a folder (just over 65,000 files per folder) and
any FAT32 file cannot be larger than 4GB. If you don't work with such
large files and have no need to store so many files in a single folder
then the point is mute. With NTFS on the other hand file size as well
as the number of files that you can store in any folder is practically
limitless, an NTFS file can be as big as the whole drive and you can
stick around 4.2 billion files in a single folder. But NTFS folders
with large quantities of files within are markedly slower to access than
FAT folders. In cases of operating system failure NTFS cannot be
accessed with DOS tools. On the other hand NTFS is more secure, if you
share your computer with someone else you can keep others from accessing
your files. NTFS also offers other advantages, just right click a file
on your NTFS drive and click on properties then look at the different
tabs. Now try the same thing with a file on your FAT32 drive, see the
difference?

See here for file system properties:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit
Chapter 17 - File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../professional/reskit/en-us/part3/proch17.mspx

It's really a toss up, up to you to decide. Windows 2000 wont be
bothered one way or the other.

John