Greetings --
Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an
option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression
capabilities, no fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space
on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. But your computing needs may
vary, and there is no hard and fast answer.
WinXP can read FAT12 (the file system used on 3.5" diskettes),
FAT16, FAT32, CDFS (the file system used on most CDs), and NTFS with
equal facility. Further, the file system on any one disk/partition or
diskette has absolutely no affect upon the operating system's ability
to read other compatible file systems on other disks/partitions.
To answer your questions without getting too technical is
difficult, but has been handled quite well by Alex Nichol in the
article here:
FAT & NTFS File Systems in Windows XP
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfs.htm
Somewhat more technical information is here:
Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314463
Choosing Between File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp
NTFS file system
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/
You can safely convert your hard drive to NTFS whenever desired,
without having to format the partition and reinstall everything. As
always when performing any serious changes, back up any important data
before proceeding, just in case. A little advance preparation is also
strongly recommended, so you can avoid any performance hits caused by
the default cluster size:
Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm
Bruce Chambers
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