NTFS and FAT32

[AlfAlmeida]

I have two USB HDs (they were gifts!), one is NTFS (Z: ) and the other FAT32 (L: ). The fixed drive in my PC has three partitions, two NTFS (C: and D: ) and one FAT32 (E: the Recovery Partition).

I have created an image of the D: (NTFS) partition with Acronis True Image onto L: (FAT32). There was no problem creating the image. Is there likely to be a problem should I need to recover the image onto D: with the drives having distinct filing systems?

I want to be sure before I go ahead and make images of C: (NTFS) and E: (FAT32) onto Z: (NTFS) in case the fixed drive has to be replaced (sometimes it makes a funny noise on bootup!). The OS and OEM programs were pre-intsalled and I want to be sure I have a working PC should I have to replace the HD. I presume the Recovery DVD which one is recommended to make, would not be any good if the HD is replaced?

[glc]

The recovery DVD can be used to restore the system the way it was shipped to a new hard drive.

The file systems don't matter. XP and Acronis can read either.

[alfie2]

file format and file systems "format" are two different things.many people are offen confused.
images are files that can be stored in any file systems be it fat16, fat32, extfs, ntfs or any other OS's file systems, it doesnt affect the contents inside the file.
So you can be sure that nothing is lost when using Acronis to back your partitions up.

[AlfAlmeida]

I'm glad that the Recovery DVD can be used on a new HD. That would be easier than installing the images. Thanks for the quick replies.

[kilgoretrout]

IIRC the older versions of True Image could only write an image file to a FAT32 partition when operated off the bootable medium like a cd or floppy. You could read and restore from an image on NTFS, however. Don't know if that's changed in the most recent versions.