back to fat32

[Don M]

I am putting together a system for a friend with a digi002 on XP. The system was already put together with XP installed on NTFS drives. I would like to reinstall XP and format the drives as FAT32 so he can have better PC/Mac compatibility. How so I get the drives back to FAT32 to do the reinstall? All help is appreciated!

[The Weed]

PowerQuest's PartitionMagic. Use it to reconfigure the drives as Fat32.

Anybody notice Symantec bought PowerQuest? Wonder how long it's going to take Symantec to get PartitionMagic into Norton Utilities. I also wonder if they're going to replace Ghost with DiveImage and/or DriveCopy. Hope not, I like Ghost.

Cheers,

[Don M]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have successfully changed the 120g audio drive using Partition magic but before I did that I tried to reinstall the system drive by using Fdisk and Format through booting off an old W98 CD. I was sort of successful but for some reason XP now sees that one 80g drive at 2..... on as 67g FAT32 and one 76g NTFS. (!?!?) Anyone ever seen something like this? I may just try to start over again.

The system is:
AMD 2600
Asus A7V600
512m DDR
Radeon video
80 gig WD (master, system)
NEC - DVD RW (slave)
120g maxtor (master)
Via firewire card

Thanks!

[Calvin]

Hey Don

Just wanted to say Hi. If this is the Don I think it is, I was a student of yours at DSL in 2001. I just wanted to see what your up to now. You know that system you built for me? I think the only part that is still from the original computer is the case. I have since upgraded to almost the same system specs you are building except with a 2500+ AMD. Well I have to get back to work. I hope that you can get everything figured out.

[tommydee]

I would like to reinstall XP and format the drives as FAT32 so he can have better PC/Mac compatibility.

can someone talk more to this issue? i had no idea Fat32 led to greater compatibility with Macs.... how does this work?

[citi]

it's not greater compatibility. Its the only compatibility. Macs can not read ntfs files but they can read fat 32. So if you have an external drive that you swap with a mac it needs to be fat 32.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

I would recommend that the system drivbe be NTFS though.. and only the removable drive needed for sharing data be FAT32 -- although I still prefer using Mac formatted drives and MacDrive5 from MediaFour. OS X 10.3 can apparently read NTFS drives (but not write to them).

Rail

[GapeOne]

Only if it's a removeable drive? I have a second 120GB internal drive for music. Is it cool to keep it as NTFS?

[Rail Jon Rogut]

I use NTFS for all my audio drives under XP.

Rail

[GapeOne]

Thanx RAIL!