Win XP on Fat32. good or bad?

Runner30 · Nov 15, 2004

I recently bought a cheap P3 600 , with an WinXP on it.

It's duty is Internet gateway, firewall, also has antivirus on it.And maybe a server in the future.
My computer is connected to the internet via this P3.

It turned that the file system the OS is installed on is Fat32.

For the job this computer does, is it ok to keep it this way, or should it be NTFS?
Is there a way to convert Fat32->Ntfs?

Thanks.

JimmyG · Nov 15, 2004

It won't make any difference either way. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

If you turn it into a server, you may want to convert to NTFS. This is a more robust disk operating system.

musawi · Nov 15, 2004

Whats the difference between FAT32 and NFTS any way ?

FyreDaug · Nov 15, 2004

NTFS supports encryption on files, support for files larger than 4 gigs and 64k cluster size. + other things, but these are the more important ones.

JimmyG · Nov 15, 2004

It is a journalized file system which is more reliable than FAT32.

nipster · Nov 15, 2004

if you arent messing with file or folder permissions and dont have multi-hundred GIG hard drives, dont worry about using ntfs

just makes it more of a pain in the *** if you ever need to boot to dos and recover files when windows decides to take a crap...

you have to find ntfsdos or some utility like that just to (possibly) get your files back, or reinstall windows

f-that

n17ikh · Nov 18, 2004

If you DO decide to convert it's fairly easy, IIRC you can use the format command in dos to do it. Don't take my word on that though, I'd say look it up somewhere cause I don't fully remember. I DO remember it took all night on my old Pentium II computer, so be prepared for a lengthy process.

Runner30 · Nov 19, 2004

Thanks for the replies.
Adding a journal makes the system a little slower, as I've seen with ext2->ext3.
I'm not concerned about losing data, I'll keep the current system.
What I AM concerned about - is avoiding going through another installation process.
I'll think about some DVD-image solution, and hopefully stop worrying about windows' metabolism problems

rick_323 · Nov 19, 2004

convert c: /fs:ntfs or what ever your drive letter may be this will convert it to ntfs format.. this enables security and permissions at the files and folder levels...

Como · Nov 20, 2004

its also usually a shortcut in the system tools folder on the start menu. Unless tehy decided that was too cool for XP.

fat32 is faster, but in a gateway it wont make much of a diff.

Win XP on Fat32. good or bad?

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