ntfs or fat32? also software xfer ?

[freenet]

I about to format a hard drive i just put in my comp. whats the diff between ntfs and fat32? is one better than the other?

Also i want to remove my old HDD with win xp on it but dont have a win xp disk to reload on the new one. can i just copy the windows files from the old on to the new and make that work?

Thanks
Joe M.

 

[GeckoEcho421]

Most systems today use NTFS, I think its more efficient. I don't understand your seccond question, sorry.

 

[livingdaylight]

The second question is a real good question iam not sure about that to just copy the windows folder to your new HD you can try but if it dont work just download it no problem you can download windows xp with programs like edonkey2000 but its your own risk to use that program read more about it on internet.

 

[GeckoEcho421]

Also burn your registry onto a disk. Then import it.

 

[lazerman]

Burn an iso image of your hard drive on a cd and unpack that to your new hdd.

 

[TheMajor]

That won't boot.

 

[lazerman]

Ah crap...

 

[sithspawn]

if you use a program called Norton Ghost it will make an exact image of your harddrive and MBR and then load it directly onto yourr new formatted harddrive. NTFS and Fat32 are different filesystems, and windows XP uses NTFS so that is what you will have to format with. You cant just copy over your windows files because it would not boot. Its a bit more of a delicate process than just copying everything over.

 

[TheMajor]

You can use both FAT32 and NTFS for XP.

 

[rama]

hey freenet
some info here

ntfs is a file system only supported by xp(maybe 2000) but not by 95,98,nt and linux. it is better because of few features like file compression (the files in that partition are kept compressed to save space) indexing service which allows to find the files faster, and also some kind of file protection ie u can access the encrypted files depending on who logs on.

some practical stuff is that search and scan is faster.

as for the second one i have not tried it so no comments. i guess that one should always have the xp bootable cd as you don't know when you might want to reinstall it.