NTFS questions

[macko]

I am building a new p4 system to run winxp prof. I plan on having a couple of hard drives in it. I am thinking of setting up the drives as NTFS. My concern is that I have two other computers on the network that are running win98se FAT32. Will the FAT32 computers be able to access the NTFS drives? And will the NTFS drives be able to access the FAT32 drives. In other words will I be able to move my files around between computers? I want to go NTFS only to overcome the 2gb limitation. I plan on capturing long video files.

[Scott Tiger]

This is a common question.

If you network two machines it doesn't matter what filesystem you us so long as the OS's know how to talk to each other.

Now if you installed a drive formatted with NTFS into the Windows 98 machine you'll never be able to read it. Windows 98 will say it's either unformatted or it won't recogize it.

So in short - if they machines are networked - no problems. Just choose whatever filesystem you want.

[macko]

That was easy enough. Thanks Scott.

[tchang]

wait ! I learn this long time ago, if I am still remember, win98 can't access another machine that runs NTFS if the 98 is using fat file system and will cause a crash or something, or If I am remember the wrong thing, then it should be like on win98 machine, u can't have NTFS and FAT both in the same time or it will crash...I try to remember, ....well, I think the sencond one that I state is true, just can't remember too well

[muno]

Well, w98 can't use any other fs than fat. So the claim that w98 can't access another machine that runs ntfs if it runs fat, is empty.

Computers use network shares via NFS, it doesn't matter what the physical drive uses, fat, ntfs, whatever.
-M

[jmichna]

Originally posted by muno
Well, w98 can't use any other fs than fat....

FAT32

[jmichna]

Originally posted by tchang
wait ! I learn this long time ago, if I am still remember, win98 can't access another machine that runs NTFS if the 98 is using fat file system and will cause a crash or something, or If I am remember the wrong thing, then it should be like on win98 machine, u can't have NTFS and FAT both in the same time or it will crash...I try to remember, ....well, I think the sencond one that I state is true, just can't remember too well

Sorry... wrong.

I have a small home network. Two PCs run XP Pro (NTFS all drives, all partitions), third is dual boot W98se (FAT32 C: ) and XP Pro (obviously FAT32 C: partition and NTFS D: partition - same physical drive).

When third is booted to W98se, sees and works with two XP Pro NTFS machines fine (does not, however, see its D: drive formatted NTFS). When third PC is booted XP, sees both C: and D:, as well as other PCs.

There is absolutely no issue between FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc. file systems when accessed via TCP/IP, as it is the "home" OS that manages the local file system on each respective machine.

[muno]

By 'fat' I meant fat16 and fat32.
-M

[macko]

I finally got the new system finished. The new system is winxp and the drives are ntfs. Just wanted to let everyone know there is no problem accessing between drives and computers. I am running several computers, win98se, win2000, and xp. All can access the ntfs drives and visa versa. Just wanted to share that. Thanks for all the help.