Hey FAT32 users, take advantage of new exFAT file system

[Bill in Co.]

No, it's not going to happen. I agree. It's a stop-gap. But remember,
us techie types know NTFS is the way to go. But joe and jane user who
bought their computer from HP or Dell and their C: drive came out of
the factory as FAT32, exFAT is more for them *until* someone can
convert their C: or removable volumes to NTFS for them, which is easy
as pie. I did this for someone recently who's removable backup drive
and C: drive were FAT32.

If everyone was on NTFS, there'd be no need for exFAT. But think about
this, when joe or jane user buys a flash drive, it comes out of the
package FAT32. Any drive I've bought has been at least. And now we're
seeing flash drives at 64GB, soon 128GB, 256GB, etc. When you plug
them in, you only get the option to format FAT32 or exFAT(on 4GB or
greater, 2GB or less can be formatted FAT or FAT32 / exFAT), no NTFS.
Sure you can probably format it to NTFS too. Plug in an external USB
or Firewire drive and the story changes as far as formatting options
go as well. exFAT, on the surface, is intended for removable media
really but you can format other stuff with it. Of course, plug it into
a computer that doesn't have an exFAT driver and it's useless. And
there's also the question of support for other OSes and NTFS.

Exactly. I guess my point is, is it really that useful, especially given
the potential drawbacks? I mean how many people need to use or store
individual files that larger than 4 GB on a flash drive? If you need to
transfer such large files, you can use some other media instead that doesn't
have this limitation, and is generally MUCH faster and better suited for it,
like an external HD.

 

[Tim Slattery]

Ah yes, ADS (Alternate Data Streams) was the phrase I was trying to
think of. Many thanks! And Ad-Aware SE (and probably Ad-Aware 2007 &
2008) does offer to scan ADS as well. So they must know something to
offer this as part of the scan, you think?

They know that ADSs are someplace where any kind of data can be
stored, just like Named Data Streams (the files we see). They are
certainly trying to be complete, whether they've ever seen anything
that exploits ADSs is a different question.

 

[WhiteTea]

There are "files that you can't even see" in NTFS, they are called
Alternate Data Streams or Named Data Streams. Seehttp://members.cox.net/slatteryt/Streams.htmlfor a discussion.

I suppose somebody could come up with a way to use ADS for their
malware, especially to hide its data files. I haven't heard of any
cases of this.

I sent you an email but got back a message saying to check the senders
email address.

Thanks for your help on the XP newsgroup.

I read your article on streams and found it interesting.
I studied streams a little when I was doing C++ programming, but I am
now doing 32 bit assembly.

I am having difficulties using Disk Probe.

Can you help me with it or direct me to someone who could ?

Thanks,
Andrew Kennedy

 

[Tim Slattery]

I am having difficulties using Disk Probe.

Can you help me with it or direct me to someone who could ?

I've never used Disk Probe.

 

[WhiteTea]

I've never used Disk Probe.

I found out that I have to double-click the drive I need.

Andy

 

[Lil' Dave]

The date and time was Thursday, January 29, 2009 2:14:51 AM, and on a
whim, Lil' Dave pounded out on the keyboard:


I only use Win9x to point out DOS versions prior to the NT kernel. I
think most others do too. I have DOS, Win98SE & Me on partitions on this
workstation. I haven't run into the bit wrap issue and I have 3 hard
drives on this workstation, with each drive having multiple partitions,
and the data drive is fat32 and is shared between them. Maybe they don't
total more than 128 gig, I haven't checked.

I actually go into those Win OS's less and less, but continue to use the
DOS partition frequently, as I have it boot to PM8 to create my OS backups
each month.

I'm curious to see how this will play out.

Terry R.

Its 128GB written data per all partitions on a given hard drive. There's no
problem in multiple hard drives. The gotcha is even if some of the
partitions are written NTFS, that written data must also be taken into
account. I know msdos can't "see" NTFS, nevertheless, its still part of the
problem. I don't claim to understand it. Just relaying my observations.