File Partitioning during Windows Installation

[shenvoid01]

I'm installing windows xp for a new system and I know that during the installation that FAT partition is the most popular and recommended because of compatibility. My question is what circumstances would you use each type partition in windows (nfts, hpfs, FAT)? And can you change them after the installation?

 

[SirSnake]

I cant recommend FAT TBH, its much less secure than NTFS, and NTFS generally speaking is a much better file system.
The volume size can be bigger for NTFS, FAT, im fairly sure, cant have file compression and other things.

If you're just having XP on your system, then NTFS is definately your choice.
HPFS and FAT are really used for older O/S.

The only reason to have FAT at all is if you are going to be having more that one O/S on your computer.

To answer your final question, fairly sure you can change FAT to NTFS easily enough, but should you want to reverse, pretty sure you have to format your drive to change from NTFS.

 

[KSoD]

FAT is old and insecure. hofs is not even for Windows. NTFS is the best to use. The only reaon why FAT is even still recognized is because that is the only file system that can be seen and used by Windws, Mac and Linux.

There are ways around it.

I would never install anything but NTFS. No you cant change it back to FAT after install.

But you can change FAT to NTFS.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Definitely go with NTFS. It used to be better to go FAT32 if you dual booted with Linux, but now Linux can read and write NTFS just fine, so you won't have any issues using NTFS, plus it's better than FAT (larger file sizes, less defragmentation needed, etc).

 

[shenvoid01]

thank you