Re: hard drive limitations
From: Dave (Dave_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 08/31/04
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Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 18:01:02 -0700
How did you manage to reply to a post about XP SP2 and Quicken
"Art" wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: septemberschild
> Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 6:51 AM
> Subject: hard drive limitations
>
>
> original posting...
> oh please please mighty Microsoft, find a way to remove the limitations that
> cause this: Why when inside of Disk Management are you able to fdisk a
> drive,
> partition
> it and then when you go to format it your only option is NTFS? Then if you
> go
> to the Command Window and type "format D: /fs:fat32" it will check the disk
> for errors which takes a long time on a 100gig HD and returns an error
> message that states "Disk is too large for FAT32"? But yet you can boot with
> a Win98 boot disk, run FDISK, re-partition, reboot then format the disk with
> no problem? Why is there a limitation inside of XP? Both from Disk Manager
> inside of Admin Tools and from the DOS window?
>
> septemeberschild:
> It's a reasonable question you raise as to why Windows XP will not format a
> hard disk that has capacity greater than 32 GB in FAT32 . It is true, as you
> apparently know, that you can use a Win9x/Me Startup disk to format FAT32 a
> hard disk of any capacity and that FAT32 formatted disk will be happily used
> by XP to install its operating system. I have never come across a clear
> explanation as to why XP has this FAT32 formatting limitation. One would
> guess that it's a somewhat oblique attempt to force users to format NTFS,
> which, I might add, isn't a bad thing for most users. But why 32 GB? One
> could also ask a related question as to why XP (pre-SP1) did not have the
> capability to partition and format the entire capacity of so-called
> large-capacity disks greater than 137 GB. Perhaps there were good and
> sufficient reasons for that limitation, but I'm not aware of them.
>
> Jim Macklin response...
> "Because FAT32 is not stable and NTFS is much more suitable
> for large drives, neither large hard drives nor NTFS existed
> when FDISK was written.
>
> Unless you are in need of FAT because you are dual booting
> an obsolete OS or have some system that does not yet support
> NTFS, there is no reason not to use NTFS. Even Linux is
> working on NTFS support."
>
> In general I'm in agreement with Jim. Except in the case where one is
> multi-booting XP with a FAT32 OS and may need the FAT32 file system for the
> XP OS, most users will be better served with NTFS because of its superior
> stability and security features. But I say "in general" because I have come
> across (in two cases) situations where a custom-made application designed in
> pre-XP days was being used and problems arose with these applications after
> installing a NTFS-based XP OS. The developers of these programs could not
> account for the anomaly and it was only after a reinstall of XP with a FAT32
> filing system did the problems disappear. But admittedly, these were unusual
> cases and I would still recommend the NTFS file system for virtually every
> user.
>
> septemberchild's response to Jim Macklin...
> "have had bad experiences with NTFS, When end users do crazy things and the
> system crashes how do you or can you access the drive to pull their files
> off
> of it so you can do a re-install? With FAT32 I can boot with a floppy and
> save any important data they need before re-doing the drive. They do not
> back
> up files as they should just like having an antivirus program and not
> running
> it."
> Obviously the answer to this is to encourage the user to maintain a
> systematic backup program. That's the important thing - not the file system
> per se. If the user doesn't employ a good backup program and keep it
> up-to-date, he or she is going to have problems regardless of what file
> system is being used. But I guess the bottom line is -- if you're more
> comfortable with the FAT32 file system as compared with NTFS, then use it.
> As Rick said at his "Ricks Cafe Americain" - "Nothing very bad is going to
> happen here."
>
> Art
>
>
>
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