convert external drive?

Our current computer runs Windows XP with a hard drive partitioned into C:
(FAT32) and D: (NTFS) drives. While the majority of the available space was
given to the D: drive, we keep our files, programs, and whatnot on the C:
drive. (I think D: mostly gets the system restore files and such.) We
recently purchased a Western Digital 160GB external drive to back up our
information. Right now, everything is FAT32, and the external drive is also
FAT32.

Here's my question: Should I reformat the external drive to NTFS before
copying any files or programs to it? My thought is more to the future, as
even though we do not currently use the D: drive, we may very well some
day--and those files would be in NTFS. I don't know a lot about these things,
but I do know that FAT32 can be stored in and coverted to NTFS while it
doesn't work the other way around. I'd like to make sure I don't have to buy
yet another external drive or back myself into a corner somewhere down the
road by not planning ahead right now.

And if reformatting is my smartest option, what's the best way to go about it?

Thanks for the help.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: pagefile
    ... Unless you know WHY you are clinging to FAT32, use NTFS all the way with Win2K and later. ... The rest of the page file can be wherever you have room, and it can be divided into several smaller page files on different drives. ... But WinXP is so much better at managing this than previous Windows versions, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.file_system)
  • Re: convert external drive?
    ... > and D: (NTFS) drives. ... Right now, everything is FAT32, and the external drive is ... So unless you have some special need for a FAT32 partition on your ... All, or virtually all, commercially-available USB external hard drives ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: partition&page file
    ... large USB hard drives being commonly available. ... NTFS can be more secure and it has some additional ... need to get data off of the drive, or do some manual repairs to files, FAT32 ... the partition from another operating system, like 98, or LINUX. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: NTFS hard drives problem
    ... Only slightly relevant to your post but, seeing as you are wildly swapping hardware aournd all over the place and you mentioned converting from Fat32 to NTFS - before converting,, you should of course shunt everything up away from the front end of the hard disk being converted to attain an optimal cluster size. ... tried to install XP from scratch. ... Do NTFS-formatted drives simply refuse ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Is NTFS OK for Audio?
    ... >> streamed faster using FAT32. ... >> considering converting my data drive to NTFS. ... because my SOP for messed-up FAT32 drives these days ... is failing from a hardware standpoint. ...
    (rec.audio.pro)
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