It's odd, isn't it. I've never had dataloss with FAT, but it occurs far too often with NTFS. And it's not my drives or anything, as those get regularly checked.

By the way, "far too often" is once every so many weeks. Any dataloss is too often in my book.

Actually, the correct term would be data corruption. No files go missing, but a couple of bits get shifted. Something which only seems to occur when moving large (quantities of) files between NTFS partitions on the same drive.

I use NTFS for my O/S partition and data/data back-up partitions ( 1x47Gb and 3x29Gb). I use FAT32 for my back-up partitions (1x124Gb and 1x210Gb) which have my Drive Image files. That's because I've had problems before restoring from NTFS partitions using Drive Image. It kept telling me I didn't have permission to access the files...

By the way, "far too often" is once every so many weeks

That's something definitely wrong with your hard drive. I used NTFS and crashed windows xp few times, none of that caused corruption or cross-linked files.

Here it is from the Horses Mouth, so to speak.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/base/ntfs.asp
MSDN NTFS Link
"Data recoverability. NTFS limits the possibility of data corruption by organizing I/O operations by transactions. Transactions are atomic, which means that either the entire I/O operation must complete or none of it can complete. If anything interrupts the transaction in-progress, such as loss of power to the computer or a cancellation of the I/O operation, NTFS does everything possible to guarantee that any changes made to the file system as part of the I/O operation are undone, or rolled back, returning the file system to its condition before the I/O operation began."

Jafo-

I have a PC I was working on for a freind. It has 3 partitions on it. I tried to reformat and reinstall XP, and I deleted the partitions before I reformated, However it still shows two partitions at boot up.

How to I delete the second partition?

Second Question!
I used to could go to windows update site and download drivers for devices, but now it does'nt detect the devices that I need drivers for like it did before. Did microsoft chane something? I need a sound card driver. Its a built-in sound card.
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Depends on what format the partitions were/are....NTFS, etc......Best bet is to get a competent Partitioning tool...one that handles all formats.

Win update can tell if you have the drivers already....probably through cookies...have a go at deleting them and see if it 'sees' the need for a new driver DL.

It might be coded into the registry, however...

to answer the orginal question... i switched from fat32 to ntfs 2 years ago .. ive never looked back... its been more stable to me ..

Oh. I fornd the partition problem.

There was three partitions on the drive. the first time I only deleted two thinking that the space would combine with the third when I reformated it. "wrong"

I had to delete all three partitions to completely remove partitions and make for one unpartioned space before I reformated.

Works fine now. And Jafo thanks again for the lite step links. When Im done with my friends PC im going to give it another shot. cross your fingers.

I've had programs that say they aren't compatible with the NTFS file system. So, since I like those programs, I opt out of NTFS for now. And, if I ever figure out how to dual boot a WinXP system with 1GB of memory and a Win98 system, then I can't use NTFS anyway. For some reason, I miss Win98.

Chas...I think there's memory 'limiters' available for running 98 with too much system ram.....have a look through 'Shell City' or try Google....

k thanks J.

I had mandrake linux 9.2 installed on a second harddrive and i could read my NTFS xp disk with no problems

I had mandrake linux 9.2 installed on a second harddrive and i could read my NTFS xp disk with no problems

Try reading a NTFS disk with Win98.

Chas....there are Dos proggies that can read NTFS....so Win98 won't be a problem either....[just inconvenient]...

Are you saying that you can boot a Win98 system on a NTFS drive? Not that I would ever use NTFS. I like my utilities and most of them won't work with NTFS.
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Chas....no, the OS must be on Fat/Fat32.....but a drive formatted in NTFS can be read by it.  Originally it was a one-way compatibility thing.....XP/NTFS could 'see' all that went before it, but not the other way round....

I'd just like to clear up one misconception - NTFS will not be replaced by WinFS. WinFS will run on top of NTFS, either a current or future version. So you lose nothing by choosing NTFS now.

I have a dual boot system. My bios lets me choose which hard drive I want to boot from. My largest drive 120g is my NTFS partition. It is an eide drive and is configuared for cable select. I have that divided into XP partition(windows os) and a second partition to store documents and music etc in case XP crashes and needs reinstalled(so far I have never had to yet even after 2years). So That is drives C:\ and E:\ in NTFS. My second hard drive is smaller 20g and was from my old computer. That is in Fat32 and has my Win98 os on it. I use that one for games and other older applications that cannot play nice with XP . Especially dos games. That drive also has the jumper settings placed for cable select, and is on the same ide cable. I placed them on the cable for the master/slave configuration (XP master and 98 slave. That way if XP will boot up by default if I don't choose something.

NTFS is very stable with XP. I can see both drives with NTFS and Xp. That way I can back up documents etc to that drive as an extra backup.

When I boot to Win98, (Using my bios and selecting that hard drive to boot to)it only sees that drive that has the Win 98 os.

NTFS is the most stable, if you completely change the drive to NTFS format then install XP.

I hope that gives you info. Oh...The other piece of info is that NTFS works best on Hard drives that are bigger than 80g. If yours is smaller, than I would not change it. You would not see any benefit from it.

Ladysarajane, that is exactly how I had my system set up to dual boot from the bios. But, now that I have a lot of Ram(1GB), it is impossible to use Win98.(I know Jafo, I'm looking for it) I just haven't found any advantages of using NTFS over Fat32 and a lot of disadvantages. Same with SP2, a lot of disadvantages and no real advantages.

FAT32 or NTFS, it´s a big difference
Here´s a link to Microsoft´s infohttp://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSXP/home/using/productdoc/en/choosing_between_NTFS_FAT_and_FAT32.asp?frame=true

I wish I could afford the 1GB ram. I do a lot of photo editing. I only have 512 now and with everyday tasks I use about 75% of it. I'm willing to give up Win98 for it!

I thought that was the easiest way to have 2 computers on one and not mess with a boot manager. I had a video card driver conflict, (XP and it did not get along) and it seemed to me that the NTFS XP recovers faster.

I've been lucky. I have had no problems with SP2. If I have to use IE for certain sites, at least now there is a popup blocker, and I can get to the firewall setting faster, but otherwise no real difference good or bad from me.

I just remember to disable any startup programs from activating(Like Bootskin and windowblinds) and set them back to defaults, install sp2. Reboot the first time(It takes it forever!) then a second time then enable my programs to start up. I have had no problems with it.

Good SP2 installation procedure, Ladysarajane. Less people would probably have problems if they followed that procedure.

I myself have found NTFS much more fault tolerant than FAT32. For example I have a visual chat server and I have noticed how on FAT32 if there is say a power failure and my computer is improperly shut down the avatar storage file gets corrupted and I have to restore it from a backup. But with NTFS that doesn't happen so I don't have to go through that.

I also like file permissions which I make good use of having my user account as power user and using cygwin to manage it.

I have also been able to access the drive just fine using some linux distributions. But if you want to install alternative OS' that install on the same partition as windows like some QNX, BeOS, Winlinux, etc. then you need to be using FAT32. But other than that I don't see any reason not to use NTFS if you are on a NT based system like XP.

I haven't had a single program not work that worked before due to me using NTFS. Also I would never install win9x on my PC so I myself don't care if it can read a NTFS drive, though if you have a 98 PC on your network it don't matter it still can read shares on your NTFS drive.
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Ladysarajane - A motherboard with Dual Channel memory might help. It has in my situation. I have 512 megs as well.