External HD format?

[snidy1]

Should I format my WD external firewire HD to NTFS or FAT32? It came formated with FAT32. I'm running XP pro. This is my first external so I'm not sure.

 

[n0cmonkey]

NTFS. Unless you're sharing the drive with other OSes (DOS, Mac OS X, etc) fat32 is worthless.

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
NTFS. Unless you're sharing the drive with other OSes (DOS, Mac OS X, etc) fat32 is worthless.

agreed.

 

[snidy1]

Thanks, that's what I was thinking.

 

[biostud]

The good thing about an external HDD is that you can move it around, and to have most compability keep the FAT32.

If you know that it will only be used by winXP/win2000 then you can format it to NTFS, and be able to store files >4GB. I have mine in FAT32 which I like because I need to acces it on older computers with win98.

 

[Monoman]

if I remember correctly, there is a program as to where you can read NTFS within Win98

 

[snidy1]

Will Fat32 work with huge video files?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Isn't the file size limit in fat32 2GB?

 

[pukemon]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Isn't the file size limit in fat32 2GB?

That is correct.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Monoman
if I remember correctly, there is a program as to where you can read NTFS within Win98

NTFSDOS I believe it's called; Sys or Wininternals...something like that, they make it. As I recall, it's about $300.