Have put together a new computer and am about to partition the HDD
using the FAT32 file system. However, I have read that WinXP will not
allow for partitions larger than 32GB when using FAT32. Since my new
HDD is 250GB, that means I'll have about 8 different partitions if I
use the max 32GB limit. Yikes! I was thinking of using an old Win98
CD and using FDISK to divide the drive into 50GB partitions and then
install WinXP. Is it possible to it this way? Will WinXP still
recognize a 50GB partition and install and run properly? Any input
would be appreciated.
Many of the followups are advising that you use NTFS, as if it cures
all problems created by FAT32. That's not always true; NTFS has its
own faults.
1: You won't be able to read an NTFS partition with DOS-based
emergency boot disks. I don't think NTFS-based emergency boot tools
have come of age; many do not allow much access to the file system or
utilities. There are some ways of getting around this (Bart-FS, etc)
but it's not smoothly integrated into XP as far as I know. Anyone...
feel free to post about good emergency boot tools for dealing with
crashed NTFS boot partitions. I'd like to know more about this as
well.
2: Many legacy apps will implode when run on NTFS. Sometimes they
just need to be tweaked and recompiled with a more modern compiler.
Sometimes they require a more extensive overhall. Kind of like a real
Y2K problem, except it's usually obscure and sparsely documented
system calls that crash. (Ask me how I know about this)
3: NTFS is not necessarily as cross-platform compatible as you'd
think. XP is using a different NTFS version than Win2K, for instance.
I'm not convinced that the transition is seemless. But I'm also not
convinced that FAT32 will bridge that gap, as I've seen problems with
Win2K reading an XP-formatted FAT32 partition. So this is a tossup.
4: File dates/times are handled differently between FAT32 and NTFS.
If you use a time/date-based file synchronizer that needs to sync
FAT32 to NTFS, expect it to go crazy twice a year at daylight
saving/daylight wasting time. Untouched files' timestamps will be
magically transformed by one hour. This is because one system
compensates the physical file timestamp while the other uses internal
compensation.
These are just a few problems. They don't all point toward using
FAT32 or NTFS. Just stating them to put some perspective on it.
I usually suggest that any user create a smaller C: partition (or C:
and D: if you're using dual boot). 20GB to 30GB is generally enough.
You can load the operating system, then load whatever 3rd party tools
that you want to deal with creating of larger FAT32 partitions, if
that is your choice.
The main problem appears to be simply the *creation* of the large
partition. After it's created I've never seen a case where XP
couldn't read or write to it. If you have an existing system, you
should be able to load Acronis Partition Expert or similar tool (old
PartitonMagic) to create partitions on the new drive--then move the
drive to the other system. (This is the statement that will probably
gather most flak, but I have done this quite a bit myself. I need to
test software with Win98/ME, so I run some large FAT32 partitions).
It's tough to say why XP can't create large FAT32 partitions, but I
believe it relates to MS's policy to discourage use of FAT32 in
general. They're not acknowledging the large number of remaining
WinME/98 systems still out there.
