Rigit

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I am going to upgrade my win98se to XP Pro. I have the choice of keeping fat32 or going to NTFS. What are the advantages of NTFS? Should I switch or keep fat32?

rigit
 

HolyGrenade

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less prone to dataloss, faster, allows files larger than 2gb, more secure etc. etc.

<b><font color=red>"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."</font color=red><font color=blue> - Benjamin Franklin</font color=blue></b>
 

Rigit

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OK Thanks for the info. One more thing. This box is on a network. The other boxes are running win98se. Will they still be able to see the files on the winXP machine? I need them to be able to interact as they always have. The winXP machine will be the "server". The internet connection for all boxes will go through this box. I just want that and file sharing to still work.

rigit
 

HammerBot

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Yes. Whether you can access the files across the network has nothing to do with what file system each machine uses.

<i><b>Engineering is the fine art of making what you want from things you can get</b></i>
 

addiarmadar

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NTFS is more stable and secure than FAT32. Waymore viruses out there that targets FAT systems than NTFS. The only problem is if you make your entire driver NTFS then you cannot break it.

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sparky853

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Thats not true...Win98SE does not recognize the NYFS filesystem. If you want to share files, you will have to make a FAT32 partition on your HDD and share that.

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Intel P4 2.4B
MSI 645E Max-U Mobo
512MB DDR333
GF3 ti200 64MB
SB Live 5.1
WD 60GB
Maxtor 120GB
LG 12x8x32 CDR
WIN2K PRO SP4
 

HammerBot

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Any files that can be recognised by the systems in question can be shared on a network. Obviously, if some fancy filesystem is invented that one of the systems doesn't recognise, that system cannot read the files and hence cannot share them on a network either.

BTW, Im not sure you are correct about Win98se and NTFS. AFAIR, NTFS can be used under W98se.

<i><b>Engineering is the fine art of making what you want from things you can get</b></i>
 

sparky853

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NTFS can read from a FAT32 partition, but FAT32 cannot read from an NTFS partition, if I remember correctly.

I have been wrong before... :wink:

Spec:
Intel P4 2.4B
MSI 645E Max-U Mobo
512MB DDR333
GF3 ti200 64MB
SB Live 5.1
WD 60GB
Maxtor 120GB
LG 12x8x32 CDR
WIN2K PRO SP4
 
Win98 can't read NTFS partitions in the same computer... over a network it's a completely different story. I connect Win9x machines to a NTFS-formatted file server all the time; and the 9x machines have no problems seeing the files or copying/pasting.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>
 

sparky853

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See...I've been wrong before. :smile:

If thats the case, why can win98 connect to a networked NTFS drive, but not an internal NTFS drive?

Spec:
Intel P4 2.4B
MSI 645E Max-U Mobo
512MB DDR333
GF3 ti200 64MB
SB Live 5.1
WD 60GB
Maxtor 120GB
LG 12x8x32 CDR
WIN2K PRO SP4
 
Only explanation I can think of right now is that network protocols don't care about file systems... they can read files from any computer. I'm sure others could provide a more detailed explanation.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>
 

Codesmith

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Techincally Windows 98 does not and can not accesses the NTFS drive or even FAT32 drives that are shared on the network!

What it does is request services form the computer with those drives installed. It asks what folders and files there are, and asks to download and modify them. The remote system then checks permissions and performs the operations for the client.

The shared drives doesn't even have to be a real drive. It can be a virtual drive that requires 3rd party software, and it can be shared like any other.

It may help to think of it like visiting an FTP site on a Unix server. Your PC doesn't have to be able to work with unix file systems to browse, upload, download, modify files. Nor does it have to have the same permission systems.

"NTFS can read from a FAT32 partition, but FAT32 cannot read from an NTFS partition"

It sounds like you are thinking of NTFS and FAT32 as if they are something other than passive storage.

NTFS and FAT32 are just partion formats. They are just a standard for storing information like *.txt file is a standard for storing text. Just like a simple *.txt file a partion format doesn't contain a single line of code. Its completely passive and can't do anything.

To use a *.txt document you need a word processor that understands that format. To use a NTFS program you need an operating system that NTFS.

Anyway Windows 98 have no problem reading NTFS partitions, you just need to download a free driver.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfswin98.shtml

You might have to pay if you want a product that lets you read and write to NTFS.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Codesmith on 02/03/04 02:51 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

thaloc

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We have Linux box on our LAN, with EXT2 file system. I have been accesing it's resources shared by Samba without problems, from Win 98, 2k and XP. Also my shared folders on NTFS drive are accessed without problems from Win98s. File system used for shared files does not matter, as long as machine that shares it can read it.