NTFS and Fat32 Help

[Webbie48]

I have a 20g hard drive and at present it is partitioned to two 10g drives both at the present are Fat32 i am going to format the C drive and make it NTFS will I still be able to use and read the programs that are on the other drive after converting NTFS
I have looked up other strings about NTfs but could not find the answer I need
Thanks

[doctorgonzo]

Yes. Assuming you are using Windows XP or Windows 2K, you won't have any problems. Both can read NTFS and FAT32 just fine.

[edge345]

You may also want to check mout the link below....

For Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS -- Must All partitions be NTFS or can a FAT32 partition be functional as well?
A: Windows 2000 Professional as long as other Windows 2000 and XP family operating systems have full support for FAT32 and FAT16 file systems, as long as CDFS, HPFS, etc.

Operating system communicates with file system via logical level Win32 API that, in turn, redirects function calls to physical level (file system drivers), so if proper file system driver is installed, operating system can access and work with file system properly.

Drivers for NTFS, NTFS5, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, CDFS are always installed when you install Windows 2000 / XP.
Drivers for NTFS, FAT12, FAT16, CDFS are always installed when you install Windows NT, there is no built-in driver for FAT32 in Windows NT.

http://www.ntfs.com/faq.htm

[largosama]

My drive is working much better now that i've converted to ntfs, not as much problems

[Statica]

Please note that you dont need to format your C drive to make it NTFS, in most cases you can convert FAT32>NTFS without losing any information.

[Tuf]

If you format your C drive and reinstall windows it's doubtful you will be able to run programs on the other partition until you reinstall them. Any program that writes to the registry won't work, that pretty much just leaves some utilities. If you want it all to work like it is now converting would be easier.


I personally think converting is a bad idea. Almost all file systems work better if they are laid down fresh.