Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Matt_H on April 29, 2004, 04:45:42 PM
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I've got an oldish Win98 laptop here, the C drive is formatted as FAT. I want to use the Windows drive conversion tool to update the C drive to FAT32, but I don't know how safe this is. Will Windows overwrite all my data with a blank partition? I really don't want to have to backup 2GB of data to my Amiga over my network...
Also, what are the advantages of FAT32 to FAT?
Thanks
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Fat 32 allows for larger disk sizes and smaller cluster sizes..
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As far as safety never had a problem but it's VERY slow.
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FAT32 uses smaller cluster sizes. There's an upshot and a downside to this: The upshot is that it makes more efficient use of disk space, the downside is that the filesystem tables are larger and consume a bit more memory. I'm not sure whether in reality FAT32 is faster than FAT, but it is supposed to be.
I don't know how well the conversion tool works, sorry. Regardless though, I would advise backing up the data first.
Reliability, in my experience is no different. The stability of the OS is the problem there, not really the filesystem, practically speaking.
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The conversion tools works, but it is recommended to format the drive in FAT32 and not converting it (Same goes for FAT -> NTFS Conversion).. Offcourse, formatting the drive without a second hardrive or backup device might give a few problems.
Oh, some extra reading
M$ on FAT (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnw98bk/html/filesystemsfat16versusfat32.asp)
comparing table (http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm)