Win XP Pro install : NTFS or FAT32

[MadMax]

Hey gurus,

I want to create a new O.S. on a new 120Gb Seagate drive using Windows XP Pro and wondering what the recommendation is for gamers these days with respect to creating the filesystem as NTFS or FAT32. Would creating NTFS make some games just not work, particularly older games?

My system is still Win 98SE so I haven't gone down this path yet. The system I'm putting this new drive on is not mine either.

Any helpful advice appreciated. (ptp feel free to move the thread to a tech help if you deem it out of bounds here (sorry I just needed a quick reply)).

Also I assume I can just create one really large FAT32 on this drive????

Cheers,
Max

[Viss]

What is a filesystem? Filesystems are a data structure or a collection of files used by the operating system (i.e Windows, Mac OS) to organize data and programs. When installing Windows 2000 or XP on a drive less than 32 gigabytes, you have an option to format the drive using the FAT32 or NTFS filesystem.

What is the difference between FAT32 and NTFS and which one is better ?

Advantages of NTFS over FAT32:

With NTFS, individual files and folders can have (be?) assigned Access Rights, enabling the user to have greater control over the security in the system.
NTFS supports data compression and encryption for files and folders, allowing the user to save space on his hard drive and keep his files more secure.
The largest file that can be saved using FAT32 is 4 Gigabytes. With NTFS there is no such limit.
On large drives with many files, the performance of a FAT32 drive suffers. NTFS drives do not have a problem handling many files.

Advantages for FAT32 over NTFS:

There are times when it is preferable to format your drive using FAT32. Since a drive formatted in NTFS is not accessible from DOS ,Windows 9x/ME or Mac OS , (which are compatible or use FAT32, ) you would need to format the drive in FAT32 in order to gain access to the drive ( it from Windows 9x/ME. ) This is often the case when dual-booting Windows 98 and Windows 2000 or sharing an external drive between a Windows system or Mac .

How do I convert my files system from FAT32 to NTFS?

If your drive is formatted in FAT32 and you would like to convert it to NTFS without losing your data, Microsoft supplies a solution. From the command line (in Windows 2000 or XP), type in CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS (where C: is the partition or hard drive you would like to convert). Due to security reasons, Windows does not let you convert the drive from NTFS to FAT32. You can however do so with 3rd party utilities such as PowerQuest's Partition Magic.

:) Hope this answers your question

[NWM]

I've never had any problems with games running on NTFS, but running older games in any NT architecture OS isnt much good because there isnt any SoundBlaster16 emulation, and therefore, no sound. That's a limitation of the OS rather than the file system by my understanding.

[MrBigglesworth]

Probably better with dos 6.0 with FAT if your running old games like TFC and CS on your pc :P

[Viss]

I've never had any problems with games running on NTFS, but running older games in any NT architecture OS isnt much good because there isnt any SoundBlaster16 emulation, and therefore, no sound. That's a limitation of the OS rather than the file system by my understanding.
(NTFS stands for New Technology File System, and yes, NT, like Windows NT) and FAT32 (File Allocation Table), which originated in the Windows 95B version but was made popular by Windows 98, Second Edition, and ME.


Probably better with dos 6.0 with FAT if your running old games like TFC and CS on your pc :P
I would hardly call the above mentioned games as old games if we were talking about retro games like Doom etc then it may be an issue and even still there are ways to mke these kinds of old games run on even the latest machines. Disregard any mention of drivers in the above mentioned post as your HDD has nothing to do with it, its your OS that causes any conflict between drivers. I run an old P3 667 with a 3 gig formatted NTFS as a server It has a really old S3 Video card and an old ISA sound card and XP installed drivers for it all.

In short if you use XP as an OS then its far more beneficial for you to use NTFS than FAT32.

[BladeRnR]

Max,

Viss's replies(s) are sound, accurate and most of all - correct. There is really no reason at all not to choose NTFS over FAT32. If you're a DOS nut you can still go NTFS as there are many programs out there that allow you to converse with NTFS files in a DOS environment. Seriously, the only time I use DOS now is when I'm Flashing a BIOS on the Motherboard or Video Cards and even then Abit/ASUS now have a Windows program that allows you to do it within the GUI itself.

In short - NTFS. It offers far more flexibility, performance and security than FAT32 ever could. Most of all it does not suffer the 4Gig file limit on a file that FAT32 does. Further, NTFS DOES offer performance advantages over FAT32 particularly with RAID (It's been very well documented).

Powerquest tools are pretty good but I now use Acronis tools for all my drive needs. If you want them just holler (ICQ #29991564).

Cheers

Blade

[MadMax]

Thanks for all the info guys.

I was under the belief some games just wouldn't work under NTFS.

I guess after reading all that it made me think of something else. We have 2 computers over a LAN, mine being a win 98 system and we share/exchange files across the LAN, so I guess having the other system as NTFS would make it impossible to read the NTFS filesystem from my FAT32 older system.

Being 120Gb a FAT32 filesystem could well mean performance will degrade severely as it gets full, so I may have to look at converting over to NTFS later, perhaps when I upgrade my system.

I'll go with the FAT32 for now.

Thanks for the great info.

Cheers,
Max

[MrBigglesworth]

IF your going fat32 and want to change later try this

Convert Fat 32 to NTFS

Taken from Iamnotageek.com...


I won't bore you with the details about the differences between NTFS and Fat32. You'll just have to trust me on this one. NTFS is faster and more secure than Fat32 is on larger drives. On smaller like sub 25Gb drives Fat32 is faster. NTFS's speed advantage only kicks in on higher capacity drives. There's a rather simple command that isn't very easy to find that will convert your FAT32 partition to NTFS. Open the command prompt by hitting start and then selecting run and type: "Convert C: /FS:NTFS". Replace C: with whatever the drive letter you'd like to convert is. Also make sure there is a space between the C: and the foward slash (/). Once you press enter it will ask you for confirmation and press Y. Then press Y and enter once more to reboot. It will take between one hour and 15 minutes to convert to NTFS. Now you can set passwords for files and use encryption. This also works for windows XP Home. Unfortunately this makes the default cluster size 512 bytes instead of the 4kb that a clean format of NTFS provides.

[BladeRnR]

I might be wrong here because it's been a while since I ran a FAT32 partition but from memory an NTSC system can 'see' and 'read/write' to a FAT32 volume but you can't do it the other way (An NTFS Partition is invisible to a FAT32 Partition).

Again I could be wrong and I'd have to confirm it but I remember having this issue when dual-booting Win98SE/ME and Win2K when it was just new and I was flirting with NTFS and asking the same questions you have :)

Cheers

Blade

[PtP]

I admit its my oldschool dos 5.2 habits shining through but I still run a 5 gig fat32 partition as my system partition (old habits die hard) I just love the idea of having the ability to boot of a notmal old bootdisk and have access to my boot partition which I have used to replace corrupt files, I know there are other ways of doing this but to me none easier than tossing in the floppy and revisiting the old dos prompt ;)

[Viss]

Ive heard your a bit of a floppy tosser PtP :)

[Peach of Pain]

I would recommend using NTFS. It is more efficient in the way it stores data due to smaller block size.

[Mudsy]

I guess after reading all that it made me think of something else. We have 2 computers over a LAN, mine being a win 98 system and we share/exchange files across the LAN, so I guess having the other system as NTFS would make it impossible to read the NTFS filesystem from my FAT32 older system.

The XP/Win2k (NTFS) machine will access/tranfer the WIN98/ME (FAT32) data fine and vis versa. However you may have problems seeing the xp/win2k machine in your network from the 98/me machine. Windows 98 and networking across OS's never did mix well. For a start, IPX/SPX and TCP/IP should be the only protocols enabled. Secondly, they must have same workgroups, different Ip addresses, etc. If you boot up the win 98 machine and log in, then start up the XP one, it should work. For some strange reason win98 sometimes does not recognise win2k/xp on a LAN unless it has been booted up first.