How to install Windows 7 on an exFAT SSD partition ?

[Norm X]

exFAT is a superior storage device format for solid state devices. I've
benchmarked the I/O performance with Diskmark 3.0.1. In order to benchmark
the data integrity I installed exFAT on a BartPE USB drive and used one of
Bart's tools. exFAT was able to restore the data integrity of a first
generation Intel SSD that had become unreliable with all other formats.

I thought that installing Win 7 on an exFAT SSD partition would be easy but
I was wrong. Win7 wants to format in FAT32 or NTFS. I have downloaded exFAT
support for WinXP but I have been unable to install WinXP on an exFAT
partition. The Win7 Enterprise install DVD I have is a 90 day evaluation ISO
I downloaded from Microsoft. I have legitimate volume licensing product
keys. Like Vista, the Win7 Enterprise install DVD permits the loading of
device drivers that it will browse for. I expected find an exFAT device
driver on the Win7 DVD but I could not find one using "exFAT" as a search
term.

Can anyone provide advice on how to install Win7 on an exFAT SSD partition?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Since Vista NTFS is mandatory for the system partition
because the operating system uses hard- and symbolic
links. Both are NTFS specific.

Early in the boot process some files must be located
before the file system drivers are loaded. This is
part of the XP NTLDR which can do this with FAT, FAT32
and NTFS only.

Uwe

 

[Hot-Text]

Since Vista NTFS is mandatory for the system partition
because the operating system uses hard- and symbolic
links. Both are NTFS specific.

No not right, for Since NTFS you can have NTFS or FAT32..
for I have Vista FAT32 and a win7 FAT32,
for at install it will ask if you like a NTFS or FAT32 partition..

Early in the boot process some files must be located
before the file system drivers are loaded. This is
part of the XP NTLDR which can do this with FAT, FAT32
and NTFS only.

True and 100% right here.....

 

[Hot-Text]

exFAT is a superior storage device format for solid state devices. I've
benchmarked the I/O performance with Diskmark 3.0.1. In order to benchmark
the data integrity I installed exFAT on a BartPE USB drive and used one of
Bart's tools. exFAT was able to restore the data integrity of a first
generation Intel SSD that had become unreliable with all other formats.

I thought that installing Win 7 on an exFAT SSD partition would be easy but
I was wrong. Win7 wants to format in FAT32 or NTFS. I have downloaded exFAT
support for WinXP but I have been unable to install WinXP on an exFAT
partition. The Win7 Enterprise install DVD I have is a 90 day evaluation ISO
I downloaded from Microsoft. I have legitimate volume licensing product
keys. Like Vista, the Win7 Enterprise install DVD permits the loading of
device drivers that it will browse for. I expected find an exFAT device
driver on the Win7 DVD but I could not find one using "exFAT" as a search
term.

Can anyone provide advice on how to install Win7 on an exFAT SSD partition?

Thanks in advance.

Windows need to partition,
the exFAT SSD partition to a NTFS or FAT32 partition..

Windows for Windows

 

[Paul]

No not right, for Since NTFS you can have NTFS or FAT32..
for I have Vista FAT32 and a win7 FAT32,
for at install it will ask if you like a NTFS or FAT32 partition..

You mis-interpreted what Uwe wrote.

This thread, says much the same thing as Uwe indicated.
Hard links are not implemented in exFAT, so the Windows 7 "store"
would not work properly. Files are linked into the windows folder
from the store.

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/7627-exfat-format.html

The missing features are documented here, for exFAT. It doesn't do
everything that NTFS does. In terms of "tick boxes", exFAT bears more
of a resemblance to FAT than NTFS.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee681827(v=vs.85).aspx

You could still have exFAT as a data partition, in the same way
as you could have FAT32 as a data partition on Windows 7. Windows 7
still needs to be able to access data from older computers.

Paul

 

[Hot-Text]

You mis-interpreted what Uwe wrote.

This thread, says much the same thing as Uwe indicated.
Hard links are not implemented in exFAT, so the Windows 7 "store"
would not work properly. Files are linked into the windows folder
from the store.

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/7627-exfat-format.html

The missing features are documented here, for exFAT. It doesn't do
everything that NTFS does. In terms of "tick boxes", exFAT bears more
of a resemblance to FAT than NTFS.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee681827(v=vs.85).aspx

You could still have exFAT as a data partition, in the same way
as you could have FAT32 as a data partition on Windows 7. Windows 7
still needs to be able to access data from older computers.

Paul

my-interpreted is:

PARTITION_ENTRY_UNUSED 0x00 Unused entry.
PARTITION_IFS 0x07 Specifies an NTFS or ExFAT partition.
PARTITION_FAT32 0x0B Specifies a FAT32 partition.

Windows 7 need to format the partition ExFAT to a NTFS..
or to a FAT32 partition..
So that Windows 7 can run......it's.....setup...........

 

[Uwe Sieber]

No not right, for Since NTFS you can have NTFS or FAT32..
for I have Vista FAT32 and a win7 FAT32,
for at install it will ask if you like a NTFS or FAT32 partition..

Hard to believe. The most popular example of the problem is
that since Vista the "C:\Documents and Settings" folder is
in fact a directory junction point which leads to C:\Users.
How does this work without NTFS? No "C:\Documents and Settings"
for compatibility with badly designed software at all?

Furthermore without NTFS there are no access rights, so all
the new UAC security stuff has no effect on files.


Uwe

 

[Hot-Text]

Hard to believe. The most popular example of the problem is
that since Vista the "C:\Documents and Settings" folder is
in fact a directory junction point which leads to C:\Users.
How does this work without NTFS? No "C:\Documents and Settings"
for compatibility with badly designed software at all?

Furthermore without NTFS there are no access rights, so all
the new UAC security stuff has no effect on files.

In Windows, the three file system options you have to choose from are NTFS,
FAT32, and the older and rarely-used FAT (also known as FAT16).

< http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Comparing-NTFS-and-FAT-file-systems >
< http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Comparing-NTFS-and-FAT32-file-systems >

 

[Uwe Sieber]

In Windows, the three file system options you have to choose from are
NTFS, FAT32, and the older and rarely-used FAT (also known as FAT16).

<
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Comparing-NTFS-and-FAT-file-systems

Sure, supported. But you say that you have _installed_ Vista
and Win7 on FAT32 which I think is not possible because support
for hard links and reparse points is required on the system
partition (C: drive).
Do you have a "C:\Documents and Settings" on your FAT32-
installed Vista and Win7?


Uwe

 

[Hot-Text]

Sure, supported. But you say that you have _installed_ Vista
and Win7 on FAT32 which I think is not possible because support
for hard links and reparse points is required on the system
partition (C: drive).
Do you have a "C:\Documents and Settings" on your FAT32-
installed Vista and Win7?

Look I do not have C:\WINNT
I do have C:\WINDOWS
on Vista and Win7

For WINNT is on a NTFS
and WINDOWS is on a FAT32

and as for Documents and Settings,
I have it on WinME too,
and it's not a NTFS but a FAT32.......

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Look I do not have C:\WINNT
I do have C:\WINDOWS
on Vista and Win7

For WINNT is on a NTFS
and WINDOWS is on a FAT32

What relevance has the name of the Windows folder?

and as for Documents and Settings, I have it on WinME too, and it's not
a NTFS but a FAT32.......

Sure, but again that is not the point. Since Vista the
user profiles are stored in the C:\Users folder.
"C:\Documents and Settings" is here not a real folder,
it is a reparse point which leads to C:\Users.
FAT32 has no support for reparse points, so the interesing
thing here is, what do you have on your FAT32 installed
Vista and Win7. C:\Users must be there because it contains
the user profiles. "C:\Documents and Settings" should be
there for compatibility with badly designed software which
use this path hard coded. Since FAT32 does not support
reparse points, it cannot be one, therefore it is interesting
if it is there on your FAT32 installed Vista and Win7.


Uwe

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Look I do not have C:\WINNT
I do have C:\WINDOWS
on Vista and Win7

For WINNT is on a NTFS
and WINDOWS is on a FAT32

No, where did you get that idea? Starting with Windows 2000, the system
directory has been named Windows rather than Winnt, no matter which
filesystem you chose to install it on. The naming of the system
directory is not dependent on the filesystem choice.

and as for Documents and Settings, I have it on WinME too, and it's not
a NTFS but a FAT32.......

Look, you're extremely confused, several people have already told you
that hard and soft symbolic links are required to be used, starting with
Windows Vista, but you keep harping on partition table entries which is
completely irrelevant here. Symbolic links have been around since
Windows 2000, but rarely used. Symbolic links are multiple aliases to a
file or a folder which point to the same entity without physically
duplicating it. It allows you to reference a file/folder by using
different names.

NTFS symbolic link - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

Yousuf Khan

 

[Hot-Text]

No, where did you get that idea? Starting with Windows 2000, the system
directory has been named Windows rather than Winnt, no matter which
filesystem you chose to install it on. The naming of the system
directory is not dependent on the filesystem choice.

On the Day I made it FAT32,
I name it WINDOWS not Winnt that how,
we have a choice on filesystem,
and directory name it windows always did.....

Look, you're extremely confused, several people have already told you
that hard and soft symbolic links are required to be used, starting with
Windows Vista, but you keep harping on partition table entries which is
completely irrelevant here. Symbolic links have been around since
Windows 2000, but rarely used. Symbolic links are multiple aliases to a
file or a folder which point to the same entity without physically
duplicating it. It allows you to reference a file/folder by using
different names.

Symbolic links are not required for Fat32,
in Fat32 you Restart your Computer so a new user can login,
it uses the Documents and Settings for the user same as a Symbolic links do,

But in a NTFS you need not Restart your Computer so a new user can login,
That why Symbolic links is required for NTFS..

 

[Yousuf Khan]

On the Day I made it FAT32, I name it WINDOWS not Winnt that how,
we have a choice on filesystem, and directory name it windows always
did.....

The default system folder name of the all Windows NT-based products
starting with Windows 2000 was "Windows". You could also name it to
"Winnt" if you liked, or even "Timbuktu", but the default has been
"Windows". This name never changes whether you created it with NTFS or
FAT from the beginning, the default name still remained "Windows".

Symbolic links are not required for Fat32,
in Fat32 you Restart your Computer so a new user can login,
it uses the Documents and Settings for the user same as a Symbolic links
do,

But in a NTFS you need not Restart your Computer so a new user can login,
That why Symbolic links is required for NTFS..

You have a lot of funny ideas about how Windows works. Windows does not
need to be restarted to login to a different username, even if it was
running under FAT rather than NTFS.

Read this article about what symbolic links are again, so you can
understand what they do:

Yousuf Khan