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NTFS or FAT32?

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skyblue

Technical User
Jun 10, 2002
22
US
on customer PC's i build with XP, should i use NTFS or FAT32?

NTFS seems like it offers little for the home user. and watching all the problems people are having on the Windows XP security newsgroup with "permissions and security" when they are using NTFS makes me think i'm just asking for support trouble later on if i use NTFS.

what do you guys think? NTFS not worth the trouble on home customer PC's?

also when installing XP on a new PC, i don't get the option to format as FAT32... so i think i need to format with a win98 disk first, then install XP and "use existing format". correct?

tia...erick
thanks,
eric

thanks,
eric
 
Eric,

The NTFS file system is more secure than FAT32 and that is about all.

For a home installation i would suggest FAT32. For "standard use".

I myself run a FAT32 partition for XPpro, i have installed a friends machine with NTFS, with which he has had no problems.

I would always suggest you boot on a 98 floppy; FDSIK and format from there and then change the BIOS to boot the XPcd, for the installation.

Good Luck !

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Don't know why you don't get option to format with FAT32 - unless your partition is > 32GB (XP won't format a fat32 partition > 32GB - but it can use one created elsewhere - eg fdisk & format). This is one reason to use NTFS.
 
on a new unformatted, unpartitioned disk, i never get the FAT32 option.. so i'm not sure if it is because the HD is unpartitioned, or because its greater than 32Gig.

anyway.. most people are telling me to go with NTFS, but i'm going to stick with FAT32 on customer's PC's... there are to many problems being reported with NTFS admin/permissions on the MS XP newsgroup that MS can't fix for me to trust it yet. i don't have the time to work on problems that MS won't acknowledge.

thanks for the comments.
thanks,
eric
 
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