Selecting the Right Windows XP File System

Disk drives are divided into one or more partitions. A partition is a set portion of the disk drive that can be formatted with a file system and managed as a single entity. Windows XP Professional's installation process examines the computer's hard disks and presents administrators with a number of alternatives, including:

• Creating a new partition using unpartitioned disk space

• Installing into an existing partition

• Deleting existing partitions to make room for new partitions

Windows XP Professional will require a partition that is at least 1.5GB in size, although a minimum 2GB partition is recommended. After deciding on a strategy for partitioning the computer's disk drives, the administrator must decide which file system to use to format the partition so that it can be used to hold data. Windows XP Professional is capable of installing on partitions formatted with any of the following file systems:

• FAT. The FAT (File Allocation Table) file system was originally developed for MS-DOS and can be accessed by any Windows operating system. However, this file system is unable to support disk drives greater than 2GB and lacks the robust security capabilities or other advanced features of NTFS (New Technology File System).

• FAT32. This is a 32-bit version of the FAT file system that provides enhanced supported for larger disk drives. However, this file system lacks the strong security support and other advanced features provided by NTFS.

• NTFS. NTFS is highly secure and support advanced features such as disk quotas, encryption, and compression.

NTFS is Microsoft's recommended file system for Windows XP Professional. It supports large hard drives and advanced features not provided by FAT or FAT32. However, if a computer is going to be set up in a dual-boot configuration, FAT or FAT32 may provide a more appropriate file system. If Windows 95, 98, or Me is going to co-reside in a dual-boot configuration, FAT or FAT32 are should be used in order to provide these operating system with access to data on the partition that contains Windows XP Professional. Windows 9x operating systems cannot access the NTFS file system. Similarly Windows NT Workstation cannot access FAT32.

If you choose to format a partition with FAT or FAT32 during the installation of Windows XP Professional, you can always convert the file system to NTFS later using the CONVERT command. However, it is only possible to convert FAT and FAT32 formatted partitions to NTFS. You cannot convert an NTFS partition to a FAT or FAT32 partition.

Note 

More information on Windows file systems and disk partitioning is available in "Disk Drive Administration" in Chapter 11, "Disk Management."