ntfs and fat32, are they compatitble??

i have 1 hard drive, and would like to dual boot win98se and my new winxppro, right now the drive is in 2 partitions, each 50% of the drive, which is a 45GB. i have all my things backed up so formatting isnt a problem.. what would be the best way to go about installing this? boot manager wise.. and also, all my backed up stuffs are on a fat32 will i be able to "see" those files from winxp? and access them.. thx

i always thought it went like this.. if windows is ont th NTFS you can see and use other FAT32 drives. But if the OS is on FAT32 then you can;t see other NTFS drives. Please correct me if i am wrong anyone

NTFS

That's close, Nas. Win 98 will have to be on Fat32, it doesn't support NTFS. It also will not be able to read or access anything on an NTFS partition. NTFS is a little slower, but more secure and it requires defragging much less than Fat32. Also, if win98 is your default OS and anyone else uses your computer, then you can keep things you don't want them to get into on the NTFS WinXP partition and give them a user name in win98 only.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it will be tricky to do. I suggest searching for dual boot xp/98 threads, since I can't give you specific advice on how to set it up to work best. Or you could just use Fat32 for both. That's how I do it.

Edit: You could try using Fat32 for your OS's, and make a 3rd partition that's NTFS, and just install winXP programs in there, and use it to store private stuff.

What is the advantage of NTFS?

regards,
Henry

I have setup many systems like this and the easiest way to do it is to format BOTH partitions to FAT32 then install Win98 to d: and once that is all done, boot off of your winXP cd and when the setup starts up it will ask you what partition you want it on so just select c: or could be the other way around if you installed 98 on c:.. all in all it doesn't matter. Once you have selected the partion, the setup asks you what do you want to do to that partition.... just select NTFS quick format, then go through the whole setup as usual, then when you reboot you will have a boot menu pop up after the bios with XP and 98. Its very simple, no boot manager required.

Go with WinXP on C, and Win98 on D. That way when installing programs on 98, they don't try to install on the XP partition (which you should format NTFS). And the same for C. There's nothing worse on a dual boot system than finding out you installed a program for one OS on the wrong partition. Also, if you were to create a 3rd partition (Fat32)...that would be a good place for your data/mp3's/vid's (clean)...etc.....

I have one guy I do work for that has 98/XP dual boot. Except he has 8 partitions. That gets real old.

Okay....more thought. If WinXP is on C, then Win98 on D, I believe you are still required to have all bootable OS's within the first 8Gb of the drive (I could be wrong...but is unlikely! ). That could throw a real wrench into things.

Just a few thoughts.....ponder over and ask a few fresh questions!

cw823 said:

Go with WinXP on C, and Win98 on D. That way when installing programs on 98, they don't try to install on the XP partition (which you should format NTFS).


Okay....more thought. If WinXP is on C, then Win98 on D, I believe you are still required to have all bootable OS's within the first 8Gb of the drive (I could be wrong...but is unlikely! ). That could throw a real wrench into things.

Click to expand...

First of all, 98 would not be able to see the NTFS partition period, so no chance of 98 progs getting installed on XP partition.

And about booting... I have my 30 GB split 15-15 and 98 boots from D no prob.

JDXNC said:

First of all, 98 would not be able to see the NTFS partition period, so no chance of 98 progs getting installed on XP partition.

And about booting... I have my 30 GB split 15-15 and 98 boots from D no prob.

Click to expand...

Um, exactly. That was my point. But there is a chance of WInXP Programs getting installed on the 98 partition, so if you make the XP partition C, you wont' have to worry.