HArd Drive format:XP and FAT32

  • Thread starter Thread starter NotSoBlah
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NotSoBlah

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Im a little lost. I recently purchased a Western Digital 60gig 7200 RPM drive for use with only recording audio. I want to run my program from my existing drive and record onto the WD i bought. All i want on that drive is the wav files i record. Problem: For some reason, im not supposed to use the setup software that came with the drive because i have XP and can format from within the control panel/admisistrative services folder. When i do this and go to format, it only shows that i can format as NTFS. I want FAT32 like my drive already in my computer which is also a western digital. Is this possible, and do i really wnat this? I am very lost and i dont want to go ahead and start recording only to find out somthing is messed up!
I have a Dell P IV with 256Mb RAM.

HELP! thanks
~matt
 
NotSoBlah said:
Im a little lost. I recently purchased a Western Digital 60gig 7200 RPM drive for use with only recording audio. I want to run my program from my existing drive and record onto the WD i bought. All i want on that drive is the wav files i record. Problem: For some reason, im not supposed to use the setup software that came with the drive because i have XP and can format from within the control panel/admisistrative services folder. When i do this and go to format, it only shows that i can format as NTFS. I want FAT32 like my drive already in my computer which is also a western digital. Is this possible, and do i really wnat this? I am very lost and i dont want to go ahead and start recording only to find out somthing is messed up!
I have a Dell P IV with 256Mb RAM.

HELP! thanks
~matt
Click to expand...
Just format it with NTFS. Your better off.
 
by the way....

I formatted as extended partition and then formatted as logical drive. I have no clue what i should have done, is this right?
 
Re: by the way....

NotSoBlah said:
I formatted as extended partition and then formatted as logical drive. I have no clue what i should have done, is this right?
Click to expand...

Should be fine. If you can see the drive, your there.
 
While XP will read any size FAT32 drive, it will only create partitions up to 32 gig FAT32 partitions. This is an artificial limit impossed by Microsoft in XP because they want you to use NTFS.

Either file system can work fine. If you want to use FAT32, you will need to find a boot floppy (a Win98SE startup disk works fine) and partition/format it with that. Then XP will read it fine.
 
I'll put another stamp of approval on NTFS.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Dang, when I installed XP, I thought NTFS stood for "not too fucking safe" so I skipped it.

Live and learn.

I apologize for adding absolutely nothing to this thread.
 
If you think you'll ever need to access that drive with Windows 98 or ME, then use FAT32.

I recently had to reformat my hard drives and reinstall Windows ME to run Pro Tools FREE. I had formatted one of my drives NTFS when I installed XP so I couldn't just install it over the other vesions of Win...

Oh, well.

Chris
 
partition magic will change the file system, on the drive, to fat32 or ntfs without reformatting the drive
 
Windows will go from Fat32 to NTFS but not the reverse. Partition Magic will go from NTFS to FAT32, but will just launch the Windows utility to do the reverse.
 
I thought Fat32 was considered to be slightly faster for audio use but NTFS is more secure?
 
NTFS is more secure, has file-locking and other features not built into FAT32, and is less likely to crash (which is why Microsoft wants you to use it).

FAT32 is easier to recover from a crash, can be read by Win98/ME systems & boot disks, and (general consesus) performs SLIGHTLY better. But the perfomace difference is so small as to be insignificant.

I use FAT32 because I want to be able to use boot floppys and be able to drop any drive into any computer (I have 5 of them). For most 2000 and XP users NTFS would probably be a better choice.
 
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