Re: Does Windows XP Support FAT partition?

From: Jim Carlock (anonymous_at_127.0.0.1)
Date: 04/26/04 

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:47:43 -0400

Brian,

The device can be formated just as any other logical drive
can be formated. The options present for removeable media
by default include FAT, FAT32, and NTFS.

I don't think it's a trick. If it responds like a disk drive, and it
acts like a disk drive, then as far as the OS goes, it is a disk
drive.

The way this happens is there is a layer between the OS and
the physical mechanisms which do the reading and writing.
This layer in turn presents the disk access routines to the OS.
When it recieves a format command, it responds to the device
in machine code (which is specific to the device) to do the
formatting.

And being that Microsoft tells device manufacturers what code
will be coming to them, hardware manufacturers then just create
the underlying drivers for the device they manufacture.

Gotta love it! 

-- 
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com/
Post replies to the newsgroup.
"Brian Coats" wrote:
>On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 22:49:54 -0400, "Jim Carlock" wrote:
>XP supports FAT. You can witness this if you hook one
>of those USB memory drives up to the system, the device
>will be seen as a FAT substructure.
>
>Which brings up to the following question... being that 40
>GB flash modules are due out later this year or early next
>year, does anyone know if XP supports NTFS on such
>devices?
It will probably use a non-standard trick  to fool xp into reading the
NTFS file system.  Like system commander 7.5 uses to it hide other
ntfs partition.   Xp, 2000 will try to format it to their file ntfs
file system-if they can.   When you do load the drive.  Change that to
docking state unknown-So you won't having any activation problems.
Brian

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Multiple Hard Drives, various Partitions?
    ... You'll find a good article called "Choosing between NTFS, FAT, and FAT32". ... Has very limited constraints on file size as well as partition size. ... All of my internal drives are NTFS, so I'm not sure how XP ... Maybe format them NTFS for the reason that the NTFS file ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: hard drive limitations
    ... > it and then when you go to format it your only option is NTFS? ... Why is there a limitation inside of XP? ... > guess that it's a somewhat oblique attempt to force users to format NTFS, ... > for large drives, neither large hard drives nor NTFS existed ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Windows XP Pro will not format drive to NTFS but will to FAT32, 40
    ... offered the options of formatting the drive NTFS or NTFS ... choose the first option, format "seems" to run ... disk may be damaged. ... formatted for NTFS on both drives one HDD running the O/S ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment)
  • Re: reinstall xp
    ... I want to format my hard drive and all I have is an upgrade xp. ... Yes, you can clean install. ... NTFS) the drive. ... when they sometimes have used non Microsoft tools to format their drives ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: external disks - NTFS?
    ... it's primarily her drive and her machine and FAT32 ... that's the limit when formatting as FAT 32 on a Windows machine. ... Format as FAT 32 using the Mac, and you can have large drives. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
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