Topic: fat/ntfs

[Steve]

i have a secondary drive i put in my pc for more space. sadly its in fat32 so i need to format it so xp can see it. Without using an xp cd or making it the only drive in the system whats the easiest way to make it ntfs? I'm worried about the data  on my primary so i might have to just make this second one the primary to get it formatted (xp cd) unless somone has a better way

[incognito]

I thought XP was able to see FAT32....I'd be very surprised if it wasn't.

[Steve]

in all my experiences over the years ive found that perfectly working and configured hard drives that dont show up in xp tend to be fat32. The way i know it to be is a FAT32 xp install can see fat and NTFS, but an NTFS can only see NTFS.

[Dumah]

Fat32 works fine in XP, if there's a problem, then either your drive format is corrupt or the Fat32 driver isnt working.

To reformat to another file system, Admin Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management. From there you can do what you neet to do

[ober]

In all my experiences, if XP can't see it, it's either FAT16 or you have your jumpers setup wrong.  XP has no problems whatsoever with FAT32 drives.

[ahluka]

No no no, Windows IS the problem on a FAT32 drive

[ober]

Hur hur hur..... STFU.

[ahluka]

Hur hur hur... MAKE ME  

[Steve]

Hur hur hur... MAKE ME  

You heard him ober, make the lil newbie wanker stfu :P

Anyway. Thats interesting because everytime this has even been an issue simply formatting the drive to ntfs with no other chnages has made it see the drive. I tried disk management but it cannot even see the drive. But if i got into bios it is there, and i know its good because i just stuck it into another pc as primary and it booted right into xp no probs. Guess ill have to do it single drive with an xp cd. Thnx for the info tho guys, i am definitly going to look into it more.

[ahluka]

Go on ober, go go go. YEAH SLAP SLAPITTY SLAPSLAPSLAP.
I stand by my replies.

[ober]

Hmm.... you asked for it... sooo...

[Steve]

Thank you sir.

[Perspective]

Ive had a windows ntfs install see a fat32 partition just fine. I don't understand why it wouldn't see it on a seperate disk. My windows install even see's my linux partitions (but doesn't know what to do with them)

[Major_Small]

same here... I had a windows XP install on an NTFS drive, and a linux install on a FAT32 drive, and the XP install could see the other drive just fine...

[Steve]

Well i looked some more into it, and the drive WAS ntfs, i was remembering wrong. So i knew i had a problem. I use partition magic with it as a primary on the other PC and formatted it. Once the XP install on that disk was gone and the hdd blank, it picked it right up with no cinfig changes.


ODD, but its working so im happy.