NTFS?

Am I right in thinging that on large Hard Drives, 60gb in my case, Win XP Pro will only install using NTFS and that there is no Fat 32 option?

According to the <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q154997" target="_blank">Microsoft Support Knowledge Base</a>, the maximum partition size that can be accessed using FAT32 is 2 terabytes. Theoretically, you shouldn't be having a problem... <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[quote]Originally posted by Capricorn:
<strong>Am I right in thinging that on large Hard Drives, 60gb in my case, Win XP Pro will only install using NTFS and that there is no Fat 32 option?</strong><hr></blockquote>

On a partition of that size, you'd want to use NTFS wither way in order to keep the cluster size down. at 60 gig, you get 8k clusters with NTFS with fat32 your at 16k or higher. According to MS though, The installer will not allow you to creat a fat32 partition larger than 32 gigabytes (this is by design). Here is the artical on it


<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314463" target="_blank">Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP (Q314463)</a>

At that size, NTFS is really better
According to MS NTFS supports 16 exabytes (where has FAT32 only supports 2 terabytes)

Thanks, it seems that 32gb is the cut off point for XP and Win 2000. If I had wanted to use FAT 32 I should have divided my Drive into two sections. However, NTFS appears to be working fine, so perhaps I should just stop worrying about it.

If you did want to do it the simplist way is with a 98/me boot disk, the format tool there will do it correctly. 64 gig is where it needs to change cluster size I believe, 32 gig the maximum xp set up will do and 2 tera whatsits as much as it can ever do.

Big cluster size isn't necessarily bad, wasteful in storage terms - some (but on an 60 meg drive ...?), experience tells me that speed wise fat is much faster (less reliable?!) than ntfs and if you are going to make the cluster size bigger then its gonna be faster still....

My opinion is that Windows XP is meant to use NTFS. It is an NT based operating system, and NTFS is much more secure/efficient than Fat32, so why not take advantage of it.

[quote]Originally posted by korpse:
<strong>My opinion is that Windows XP is meant to use NTFS. It is an NT based operating system, and NTFS is much more secure/efficient than Fat32, so why not take advantage of it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I agree, XP has many facilitys that require NTFS to take full adfantage of,

[quote]Originally posted by korpse:
<strong>My opinion is that Windows XP is meant to use NTFS. It is an NT based operating system, and NTFS is much more secure/efficient than Fat32, so why not take advantage of it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Well yes secure, but if you are a gamer you will have a different perspective on this...Speed please!! thats why MS left it there not just for compatibility.

Its 'efficiency' depends on what you are measuring...