Format dilemna

[Brian A.]

If there is a site that explains this and has a fix, that would be great.
Newly built machine up and running.
I have a WD 160 GB drive installed. When I installed XP Pro I partitioned
the drive into three:
C:\ = 20GB FAT32 Local fixed disk----used for OS
E:\ = 80GB unformatted Local fixed disk----to be used for programs
F:\ = remaining GB unformatted Local fixed disk----to be used for yada yada
yada basic crap

Now herein the questions lie:
When I formatted C: I chose NTFS, it formated it as FAT32 because it was
more than a 2048 allocation size. Can I change this and how?
It never gave me a choice to format E: and F: unless I missed something, I
am on 6hrs of shuteye since Fri. What to do?

If I format E: and F: as the default NTFS in Windows, will there be any
problems between the drives? I know how to force FAT32 format but would
really like to have all drives NTFS.

If I must reformat, repartition and reinstall, not a problem as I have not
loaded any programs yet. The only other thing I will have to do is reload
the integrated device drivers.

BTW, the drive did not come with a disk but I do have one from another exact
drive. I really hate those drive overlay disks, so if there is a way to
complete my task, I'm all ears.

Brian

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Brian,

You can convert the existing drive into NTFS, read here:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

The other drives will automatically format in NTFS as they are larger than
32GB (WinXP will not create a drive over 32GB in anything but NTFS). Also
the default allocation for NTFS should be 4096, if you specified otherwise
this may be why it went with FAT32. There is nothing preventing you from
using both file systems in the same machine, WinXP will read/use both with
equal alacrity.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Brian]

Thanked above.

Hi Brian,

You can convert the existing drive into NTFS, read here:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

The other drives will automatically format in NTFS as they are larger than
32GB (WinXP will not create a drive over 32GB in anything but NTFS). Also
the default allocation for NTFS should be 4096, if you specified otherwise
this may be why it went with FAT32. There is nothing preventing you from
using both file systems in the same machine, WinXP will read/use both with
equal alacrity.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone



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