NTFS->FAT32 conversion

Post #247,445 by pwhysall 3/10/06 7:22:30 AM Reply	NTFS->FAT32 conversion Short version: No. Long version: No. NTFS is an extremely rich filesystem that has things in it (streams, metadata, journalling) that just cannot be represented in FAT32. FAT32 is, in any event, a truely crappy filesystem; I can't think of a single circumstance in which you'd prefer it over any other (other than the sheer ability to read it, that is). We have Windows boxes here that we power-cycle all day long, and they never miss a beat, because there are many, many crappy things about Windows, but NTFS isn't one of them. Peter [link\|http://www.no2id.net/\|Don't Let The Terrorists Win] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
Post #247,454 by folkert 3/10/06 8:52:29 AM Reply	Embedded Devices usually use FAT. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* Freedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0; 0 rows returned.
Post #247,508 by Ashton 3/10/06 3:47:48 PM Reply	Was thinking of compatibility, not excellence Also thinking simplistically: OSX ergo any nix, I suppose (and maybe <= OS9??) natively grok FAT, as I have seen with own baby blues. Handy for getting Beastware data off, obv. Unaware if M$ NTSF (undoubtedly 'customised-to-noncompliance') -- plays nearly as nicely (?) Yeah.. ignorance produces fuzzy decisions. And in practice, in this case re the convenient use of fdisk or gdisk: I expected later, on nix install in those Extended Partitions, to reformat to an appropriate selection (at which point I would have to learn if Reiserfs / 'journalling' are buzzwords a non-db-using Admin needs to concern pretty little head about.) Thanks for reminder, but I had not totally missed the archaic nature of FAT, its limited menu of attributes for precisely-graded security AND its crutch of regular defragging -- thus, wonder if the M$ + Symantec co-prosperity-sphere assured that NTSF would need defragging [Tool$] too? (Surely a corporate pact worthy of both.) Ashton
Post #247,537 by folkert 3/10/06 9:32:33 PM Reply	Forget about FAT except for USB thumb drives. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* Freedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0; 0 rows returned.
Post #247,547 by Ashton 3/11/06 12:40:21 AM Reply	Ouch - so those are useless re HPFS? Does that imply --> to do sneakernet, one needs to save a small partition formatted in FAT, xfer data there: then it's accessible via those handy little buggers?
Post #247,549 by Another Scott 3/11/06 12:55:00 AM Reply	No. The format on the flash drives is FAT. As long as your OS understands how to talk to a USB drive, it'll be able to read it because just about every OS can read and write to FAT. You almost never need to format a flash drive - it comes preformatted as FAT. FAT32 hard drive partitions are a different beast. So no, you don't need to worry about how you format your hard drive as far as talking to a USB flash drive is concerned. Linux, XP, Win2k, OS X, WinMe, Win98SE can all talk to USB ports and can read flash drives. You can write to it in OS X and read it in Winders and Linux, and vice versa. The flash drive doesn't care what the native hard drive file system format is. HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #247,552 by Ashton 3/11/06 2:10:41 AM Reply	Ah, that makes more sense It's the missing half of Greg's terse comment :-) (ie formatting one of those dongles in other-than FAT - if even possible - would be counterproductive)

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