Doug W

Greetings,

Things were getting pretty messed up on my computer so I decided to format and reinstall XP SP2.

I have always used FAT at home and NTFS at work but maybe my opinions are just out of date.

This is my recording computer with

nTrack 3.3
PowerTracks 10
Kristal
kX drivers
Audigy 1
Audigy 2

The kids also use the same computer for games.

Any opinions out there?

DudeBoyz

I always leave my first and second drives / partitions at FAT32 for compatibility. I make all my data drives NTFS now.

So, I have a physical C: drive of say 40 gig. A physical D: drive of say 40 gig. A physical E: drive of 120 gig, a physical F: drive of 320 gig cut into three partitions - 110, 105 and 105 for drives F: G: H:.

On that system, Drives E, F, G and H would all be NTFS. Drive C: and D: would be FAT32.

That way I can access them with simple boot floppies for Norton Ghost, Spinrite, emergency file copying, etc.

Doug W

Thanks DudeBoyz. I have always formatted my C drive as FAT32 in the past but was just wondering if I was the last person on earth doing it.

Maddogg6

unless you have an application that requires FAT32 - I would not format that way.... I heard some people get better performance with AUDIO apps in FAT32 - but - ??? - I dunno - I do alright - and If I were to need better - I would go RAID.

But - as dudeboyz was indicating - if you dink around that can cause the potential for needing to emergency boot from CD's or what ever - you may want to consider that too.... but I have yet to need to boot from anything but my win XP HDD in the past 2 years or so....

The best thing would be is to look at all your apps and consider if FAT32 is needed with any of them - or if you can get an NTFS version of them - usually are disk utils to be concerned with - but I find - NTFS equates to less need for disk utils thus far - but I have not had a drive failure yet either ..??
Im surprised any disk utils exist that are FAT32 only that arent in a NTFS version now... ??
note: I also have a FAT32 partition for the same reasons dudeboyz was getting at - but I sorta regret it now and am considering converting to NTFS when I get around to it - as its the only drive that causes scan disk to pop up after the occasional crash.


Mark

DudeBoyz

Fat32 doesn't hurt anything. I put it there for speed and compatibility.

I boot to a GHOST boot floppy, image my system and burn the image to a DVD after rebooting back into Windows.

If the BIOS or FIRMWARE you are going to be flashing is too large to fit on one floppy, it's great to be able to simply copy the files to the C: drive in the root folder, then boot off the floppy and be able to type: C:\FLASHME 1334.BIO or what not.

I can boot to a floppy and manually copy out the USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT files, then copy a previously trusted set right over from another folder on my D: drive, for instance.

I can boot to a floppy and edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, the WIN.INI files, delete the swap file / paging file, delete the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder contents, etcl. Because you are outside of Windows, you can access all the files - none are locked.

It just seems to work better for me.

I store only the OS and PROGRAM FILES on the main drive - all my key data is on my NTFS partitions - my Utorrent downloads, ripped DVD's, MP3 files, etc.

NTFS is slower but a bit better at handling things when file errors happen, and it handles files over 4 gig, so if I rip Dual Layer DVD's and want to copy or move them from drive to drive, NTFS can do that. Fat32 will store a file larger than 4 gig if it is created on that drive, but I can't move it off of there, seemingly.

Anyway, I'm still a floppy drive dude, so the boot floppy thing is just how I roll.

I've tried NTFS4DOS but get flakey results so find that FAT32 just works better.

thomasabarnes

Hi all:

The only real advantage of using the FAT file system is if you are going to dual boot using 1) Win 98, 98SE, or ME Operating System, and 2) Win XP or later. This is because only Win 2000, XP and later versions can read the files of a NTFS drive.

You will not be able to access NTFS partitions or drives with the earlier Windows version. So, if you are planing on dual booting with an older Win OS and XP, go with FAT. If youre only gonna use Win 2000 or later, go with NTFS.

Some of the major advantages of NTFS are:

1) Better user level and network level security
2) Drive and folder compression is much easier
3) More robust file system (unlike FAT, with NTFS you seldom have to run a
scandisk utility).


For Norton Ghost, you can make a bootup CD.

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Tipstaff

4) Larger file sizes
5) better for audio recording (infact Logic Audio will screw up under XP if the file system is FAT32)
6) better performance as the drive fills up (FAT32 drive performance on small drives is better than NTFS, but once the size increases performance will actually decrease)
7) another peformance increase due to the fact that NTFS can save smaller files within the MFT (that way when the OS needs to read data, or rather find a file, it's not having to goto the MFT to find the location of the data, and then move to the acutal location of that data somehwere else on the drive)
8) security (although this can be NTFS' biggest drawback as the more security NTFS lays down the more it effects drive performance). With NTFS you can set permissions for any files or directories, as well as add encrytion to those files and directories. This is especially critical on a network where you don't want other people to be able to easily access files on your machine. With FAT32, your screwed unless you take other 3rd party means
9) NTFS uses smaller cluster sizes for storing data (btw, some setup programs designed for 2000/XP can incorrectly calculate available disk space, and can screw up).

Here's when to use FAT32:

1) If you are sharing a drive/partition with more than one operating system (ie. OS X, Linux, Win9x/ME). Infact, if you are multibooting you should have the boot partition as FAT32 if the other OS is something other than Windows XP/2003/Vista (or Windows 2000 AFTER the LBA fix)
2) Along with the above, you should also use FAT32 on external devices, such as USB pen drives/hard drives (just don't use Windows XP to format it, or you will be stuck at 32GB max) as it will be more portable for use with other operating systems

BTW, as for Norton Ghost, it has a problem spanning NTFS partitions over multiple discs (DVD/CD), as well as problems dumping an image file to an NTFS partition (and it doesn't matter what size that image file will be), so if you are using Ghost to backup a hard drive to CD/DVD/Image, stop, cuz it will F'UP. Ghost is just fine for drive to drive imaging (ie. ghosting), but your best bet would be to use Acronis, or Drive Image for drive to CD/DVD/Image file backups.

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thomasabarnes

I found that Acronis is better overall for me, but I'm sad to say that I've had no considerable success with even using Acronis to back up to DVD.

I have Acronis True Image Workstation. I tried serveral times to backup my boot drive to 2 DVD and 1 CD (that's what I needed to use, and even tried 2 DVDs), but I keep geting a "backup is corrupt error" or some error to that effect, when I try to restore from the removable media.

Would appreciate it, if you can expound on how you are having success with backing up to removable media. Also, which Acronis software are you using?

Sorry Doug W, I don't mean to hijack your thread. Tipstaff, just touched on a matter I'm very interested in!

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May a song always touch you in a positive way.
Sonar 8 Producer Edition, Vista Ultimate 64Bit, MOTU UltraLite MK3, 250 GB HDD 7200 rpm, 80 GB HDD 7200 rpm, Lite-On DVDRW LH 18A1P
My Music Production: Top 40, Contemporary Christian, Pop/Rock, Decent Rap, Inspirationals, and Children Songs

DudeBoyz

Odd. I have no such issues with Ghost 2003 for DOS.

I use a boot floppy and can specify which destination partition / folder I want to put the GHOST file into. On FAT 32 it auto-breaks the image files into 2 gig chunks, though you can specify a different split with a simple command line option:

ghost -clone,mode=pcreate,src=1:1,dst=d:\ghost\back.gho -auto -batch -split=600 -z1

Even though I may not be able to see NTFS from the boot floppy, Norton Ghost 2003 for DOS can. It reads from and writes to NTFS without any problems that I can discern.

However, I did just buy Acronis True Image Home 10 so I can prepare for the future. I'm not a fan of Ghost after 2003.

Anyway, I'll try doing some backups off a boot CD on a system with two NTFS partitions and see if I can find any Ghost 2003 errors.

If you have any additional info on what issues you found and how they might be repeatable, please post it here. I'd like to try to narrow down what the problem may be in case I'm missing something.

Thanks

UPDATE: I just did an image using GHOST 2003 for DOS (Update 3). I created a boot CD based on the Win 98 SE boot floppy. I booted from that CD to a system that has C: and D: partitions, both NTFS. I did a LOCAL > PARTITION > TO IMAGE and pointed to C: as the source and D:\GHOST\ as the destination. Ghost did the image and also auto-broke that into 2 gig chunks.

Seems to have worked 100%.

Is there any testing or procedural things I would need to do to replicate the errors that you appear to be having?

Thanks

Doug W

Thanks for the replies guys. I will roll the dice and install tonight.

DudeBoyz

Hope it all works out.

If you are not doing anything "Legacy", NTFS might be the best option. I'm just old school, I guess, and fighre "just in case", I'll stick with FAT32 on the first two drives.

Anyway, have a good weekend!

Tipstaff

Autobreaking the image is the only way to get Ghost to properly dump to an image file on an NTFS parition. If you leave it alone Ghost will mess up when it goes to update the MFT. What will happen is that the file will get writen to the partition, but for some reason the MFT doesn't get updated. The file will be there, just not visible. To fix this you have to run chkdsk with the /f switch to recover the file. As for spanning, Ghost itself even mentions when you go to dump the drive to an image that it has trouble spanning NTFS amoung multiple discs/images. A lot of times you will find that the image is corrupt right near the end of the set.

Now, if the image is going to be bigger than one DVD (ie. 4.3GB), I'll use Acronis from within Windows (previously True Image Enterprise 8.1, now 9.1) to backup the drive (I'll usually dump the image to a seperate drive, and then burn the files to DVD later), but if it's smaller than 4.3GB I'll dump it using Ghost right to DVD (previously 8.3, now using 11.0). I haven't had the chance to throughly test Ghost 11.0 yet as I just got it, so we'll see what happens. I do prefer using Hiren's BootCD to do any work I need to (although I do own both TIE and Ghost) as they've included optical drivers for some newer controllers (such as Intels 965). Without those drivers I couldn't backup to optical drives hooked up to boards based on those chipsets as the 965 chipset goes about mounting PATA devices differently (can't tell if it emulates PATA, or is using a different method for accessing it).

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DudeBoyz

Well, for me, Ghost 2003 for DOS clearly works. 100% Dunny what trouble you are having, but I sure ain't havin' em.

JoeMenn2007

Hello I am a new member just registered, and I am looking for a software that I ca easily format my external hard drive to FAT32, any suggestion will highly appreciated.
THANKS

TravelRec.

You don´t need any software, the win2000 or winXP CD will do everything you need, simply choose the option you want during install. It is also possible to create different partitions or logical drives.

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JoeMenn2007

I did follow th instruction going to start button to promt cmd then typed " format (Drive Letter): /FS:FAT32 then it will ask me to enter the volume label of the drive & I don't know what is that then it will not format my drive.

Sometime ago I downloaded this this simple box software unfortunately I deleted it and can't find it anywhere else to download it again. It was so easy to format a drive to fat32 then and I don't have to go to cmd prompt.

If you can tell how can I find volume label on my drive is probably it will work or maybe something is wrong with my computer.

THANKS

Russ

You have to partition your drive before you can format it. Either use FDISK from the setup disks, or the Disk Management tool.

i.e.
With XP:
How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP

Maddogg6

The drive volume label is what you see in windows explorer for your hard drive(s)

in WinXP - Navigate to 'My Computer' and use a detail view

You should see something like
Name column:
{Icon} some_volumeLabel_name (C: )

Type column:
Local Disk

You normally make it what ever you like when formatting. But perhaps it wants you to type in the current one to avoid accidentally formatting the wrong drive..?? Its been a while since I formatted anything.

Of course your external drive is probably not be the 'C' drive, and it may say the type is 'Removable Drive'.

JoeMenn2007

I GOT IT THE SOFTWARE I AM MISSING IT'S FAT32FORMATTER FREEWARE AND I AM NOT REALLY FAMILIAR DOING PARTITIONS ON THE HARD DRIVE BUT THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE I AM GOING TO SOME COMPUTER CLASS AND PROBABLY LEARN MORE OF THESE COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE AND GLAD TO BE A MEMBER HERE I THINK I'LL LEARN MORE HERE THAN GOING TO THAT CLASSES I AM GOING TO. THE WEBSITE OF THE FORMATTER IS @ tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/index.html

THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR PROMPT RESPONSE!!!!

imperia

Well this question is like "Win 98 or Win Vista? I go with windows 98 for speed." lol

NTFS is way better.
Nobody said it has journaling too
NTFS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tyrsonswood

True but JoeMenn2007 mentioned an external drive... there would be instances where fat32 would be needed if used on a range of systems. I had an external formatted this way because I was running a 98se system as well as my xp systems so it still has it's uses in that regard.

In general NTFS is better until a better file system comes along.

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