Problems with FAT32

[Doug Davis]

A friend of mine was reinstalling Windows XP and so in order to save all his
data, he moved it all to a secondary 80GB drive (WD800) that was formatted
using the FAT32 file system. When he reinstalled Windows he made the boot
drive NTFS. However, he can no longer see the data on his FAT32 drive.
Windows XP reports it as being completely blank and asks if you would like
to format when you try to access it.
The strange part is that when you boot the computer using a Win98 boot disk,
you can see all the files there.

I've tried messing with all the jumper settings and have tried it on three
different computers. Each time, the computer has not problem seeing it
physically, it just can't read any data off it.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Stephen Harris]

A friend of mine was reinstalling Windows XP and so in order to save all his
data, he moved it all to a secondary 80GB drive (WD800) that was formatted
using the FAT32 file system. When he reinstalled Windows he made the boot
drive NTFS. However, he can no longer see the data on his FAT32 drive.
Windows XP reports it as being completely blank and asks if you would like
to format when you try to access it.
The strange part is that when you boot the computer using a Win98 boot disk,
you can see all the files there.

I've tried messing with all the jumper settings and have tried it on three
different computers. Each time, the computer has not problem seeing it
physically, it just can't read any data off it.

Any help would be appreciated.

I don't think those two file systems are compatible.

It seems to me that you can upgrade the 80gb disk
(assuming it has win98, or install win98 on it first)
to windows xp. Then convert to NTFS. Then you
should be able to share data files between the drives,
but will have to reinstall any applications which
functioned on the 80gb, I think. Warnings exist about
the problem you have encountered--it does not have a
physical remedy such as jumpers.

I find Partition Magic 8.0 and BootMagic handy at times
in case you need to hide partitions instead of network
which works better with NTFS than fat32 for xp pro.

Regards,
Stephen

 

[Lorne Smith]

I don't think those two file systems are compatible.

It seems to me that you can upgrade the 80gb disk
(assuming it has win98, or install win98 on it first)
to windows xp. Then convert to NTFS. Then you
should be able to share data files between the drives,
but will have to reinstall any applications which
functioned on the 80gb, I think. Warnings exist about
the problem you have encountered--it does not have a
physical remedy such as jumpers.

I find Partition Magic 8.0 and BootMagic handy at times
in case you need to hide partitions instead of network
which works better with NTFS than fat32 for xp pro.

Regards,
Stephen

Stephen: Incorrect... Any NT based OS such as XP can read FAT32 natively...

Doug, try right clicking on My Computer & choose the Manage option, the open
the drive management tree and see if the drive is listed there... If it is,
you may need to enable is (right click it & choose enable). If it's not,
you could try the Import Foreign Disk option but that really shouldn't be
necessary as XP can read FAT32 natively.... It's FAT32 based OS's which
can't read NTFS without additional software...

Lorne

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

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.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

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.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Peter Hutchison]

A friend of mine was reinstalling Windows XP and so in order to save all his
data, he moved it all to a secondary 80GB drive (WD800) that was formatted
using the FAT32 file system. When he reinstalled Windows he made the boot
drive NTFS. However, he can no longer see the data on his FAT32 drive.
Windows XP reports it as being completely blank and asks if you would like
to format when you try to access it.
The strange part is that when you boot the computer using a Win98 boot disk,
you can see all the files there.

XP needs to be told that the partition exists.
Open Disk Management, click on the FAT32 partition and select
Initialise, which will write a signature to the disk. Then you can
apply a drive letter to the disk and read it as before.

Help and Support gives more info.

Peter Hutchison
Windows FAQ
http://www.pcguru.plus.com/