Fat32 changes to NTFS during system restore?

[Bluefront]

My system was setup using XP pro on an NTFS partition...the second partition on that drive was also NTFS. I made a backup image using Drive image on the second NTFS partition. After some problems which I blamed on NTFS, I converted the C partition to Fat 32.

Everything ran fine for a few months. Then after a driver problem I restored the image which was still on an NTFS partition. After the image of the C drive was restored, I found my C drive was converted back to NTFS.

The question is.....Is this normal? I thought a partition that was Fat 32, would stay Fat32 if an image from an NTFS partition was installed. Can't figure this one....

 

[Gamingphreek]

No if one partition is NTFS all have to be NTFS on that physical drive (IIRC).

Why would you want FAT32 anyways, NTFS is worlds better.

-Kevin

 

[Bluefront]

Wait a minute...you can convert one partition from NTFS to Fat32(like I did) using Partition Magic, without converting the whole drive.

FWIW.....I found out DVD-RAM drives like I use have problems with NTFS. After converting to Fat32, both drives starting working again.

That's not what this thread was about....

 

[bsobel]

The question is.....Is this normal? I thought a partition that was Fat 32, would stay Fat32 if an image from an NTFS partition was installed. Can't figure this one....

You seem to be saying you imaged a NTFS volume, converted it to FAT, and then restored the image. And your suprised the image restored was an NTFS volume? By default it would (of course be), the imaging products don't care about what the current file system your going to blow away is....

Did I understand you right?
Bill




















[/quote]

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Bluefront
My system was setup using XP pro on an NTFS partition...the second partition on that drive was also NTFS. I made a backup image using Drive image on the second NTFS partition. After some problems which I blamed on NTFS, I converted the C partition to Fat 32. Everything ran fine for a few months. Then after a driver problem I restored the image which was still on an NTFS partition. After the image of the C drive was restored, I found my C drive was converted back to NTFS. The question is.....Is this normal? I thought a partition that was Fat 32, would stay Fat32 if an image from an NTFS partition was installed.

Yes, it's completely normal. If you imaged an NTFS filesystem, it will be restored as an NTFS filesystem. Reason being, mostly, is that NTFS supports things like alternate data streams and extensive file permissions (security settings), that cannot be represented on a FAT32 filesystem. So unless your imaging program specifically includes a feature to convert between filesystems, by default, it should restore using the same filesystem that you originally imaged.

If you want it to be FAT32, then you should re-convert the restored NTFS filesystem image over to FAT32 again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
No if one partition is NTFS all have to be NTFS on that physical drive (IIRC).

No, you can mix-and-match, just as you can any legitimate filesystem/partition type, generally speaking. FAT32 does hold some advantages over NTFS, for certain applications or reasons.

 

[Bluefront]

Thanks....That clears it up. I converted the restored partition back to Fat32 again, w/o problems. Heh. I'm through with NTFS.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Bluefront
Thanks....That clears it up. I converted the restored partition back to Fat32 again, w/o problems. Heh. I'm through with NTFS.

I gotta ask why, FAT is a horribly inefficent and hard to recover after error (such as power loss). What NTFS problems did you run into?

Bill

 

[Bluefront]

I thought I explained it. Both my DVD-Ram drives, which I use for backup, refused to operate with the OS on an NTFS partition. I could not format the media, nor could XP read the remaining free space on the media. Both these drives work w/o problems on Fat32 partitions. Other people report similar problems. I have a ton of data on DVD-Ram media.

 

[Nothinman]

Perhaps you should complain to the drive company? There's almost no reason to use FAT these days, atleast if you like your data.

 

[Bluefront]

Maybe you don't get it. The data on the DVD-Ram media is not Fat32. Like complaining to a drive mfg will do anything for me? I've used Fat32 for years w/o any problems. Jeez.....

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, I do understand, if their software doesn't run when it's installed on an NTFS partition something is seriously wrong with it.

I've used Fat32 for years w/o any problems

And if I drove a pinto for years without it exploding that doesn't mean it's a good car, that just means I was lucky.

 

[Bluefront]

FWIW....There isn't any particular software to run a DVD-Ram drive in XP....it has native support. Unfortunately on a NTFS partition, getting one to work is iffy. There are many reports I've read that outline similar problems to the ones I have.....without any fix except to avoid NTFS.

For the sake of NTFS you suggest I stop using DVD-Ram drives (I have four between several computers), and of course abandon my large library of movies, data. These DVD-Ram disks work just fine in my two Panasonic stand-alone DVD players. A person would have to be totally nuts to do that.....

 

[Gamingphreek]

What does a HDD Allocation Table have to do with a DVD Drive. Nothing.

-Kevin

 

[CQuinn]

>> DVD-Ram has native support

This is true, it should look just like a removable drive to the OS, yes?

Just because it has native support does not mean there can't be newer system drivers
available to update its functionality.

If so you should be able to put any format you like on it, assuming the driver support is
such that it will recognize the new format. DVD-Ram was popular for supporting FAT32
formats on the disc.

But the point Nothinman was trying to make is correct, if your boot partition, or any
other (non DVD-Ram) partition is NTFS, it should not make any difference to the DVD-RAM
drive, because the drive talks through the OS to get access to files on other partitions.
If the drives are not working right because there is an NTFS partition somewhere else
on the system, then it is overstepping its functionality in regard to what the OS is
supposed to take care of.

 

[Bluefront]

CQuinn.......Panasonic publishes a specific DVD-Ram driver which I tried without success. NERO's packet-writing driver package didn't fix the problem. A complete reformat didn't fix it. Finally I found several leads suggesting the change to Fat32.

I'm sure there might be a way to use NTFS and DVD-Ram with my units......but it simply is not worth any more wasted time, since Fat32 fixed the problem for me.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Bluefront
Thanks....That clears it up. I converted the restored partition back to Fat32 again, w/o problems. Heh. I'm through with NTFS.

I gotta ask why, FAT is a horribly inefficent and hard to recover after error (such as power loss).

FAT is much simpler, and easier to recover than NTFS, actually.

While NTFS has meta-data journalling support, that does nothing for maintaining the integrity of user data, which makes it largely a red herring, and can actually lead to cases in which the filesystem is repaired automagically, with no indication to the user that their data may be at risk of corruption, thus actually contributing to long-term bit-rot problems.

Likewise, NTFS has corner-cases that can actually impede system functionality, such as excessive MFT fragmentation preventing proper booting. I'm not aware of any such corner-cases with FAT32.

As far as being inefficient, it depends on what tasks they are doing. In some cases performance of FAT32 exceeds that of NTFS, for certain applications. The overhead of NTFS does take a toll on performance generally.

Now I'm not going to say that NTFS is all bad, it supports features such as security ACLs and per-user disk quotas, which would be useful for a server. But likewise, it would be equally incorrect to claim that FAT32 was all bad as well.

 

[Nothinman]

FAT is much simpler, and easier to recover than NTFS, actually.

It's also easier to lose the entire FAT because there's only 1 backup and it's right next to the main copy, if it's even being updated properly.

While NTFS has meta-data journalling support, that does nothing for maintaining the integrity of user data, which makes it largely a red herring, and can actually lead to cases in which the filesystem is repaired automagically, with no indication to the user that their data may be at risk of corruption, thus actually contributing to long-term bit-rot problems.

And FAT has no journaling of any kind so not only does it not ensure user data integrity it also doesn't ensure filesystem integrity, yay.

Likewise, NTFS has corner-cases that can actually impede system functionality, such as excessive MFT fragmentation preventing proper booting. I'm not aware of any such corner-cases with FAT32.

In all my years of supporting NT I've never seen that happen. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that you probably have a better chance of the PC catching fire.

The overhead of NTFS does take a toll on performance generally.

The only real overhead is in the security, everything else is generally faster.

But likewise, it would be equally incorrect to claim that FAT32 was all bad as well.

The only things FAT is good for is sharing disks with OSes that don't support NTFS and very small devices like flash devices and such and even now that the 1G and larger ones are getting more popular I would say FAT isn't a good idea for some of those either.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

FAT is much simpler, and easier to recover than NTFS, actually.

It's also easier to lose the entire FAT because there's only 1 backup and it's right next to the main copy, if it's even being updated properly.

You are correct, of course, but that in no way negates the point that short of complete destruction (which could happen to either FAT or NTFS), FAT32 is much easier to repair by hand due to its inherent simplicity. Also, it makes me wonder what kind of overhead there is to update two non-contiguous MFT copies, in terms of disk-seek time.

Originally posted by: Nothinman
And FAT has no journaling of any kind so not only does it not ensure user data integrity it also doesn't ensure filesystem integrity, yay.

Which is actually good, because you can't fail to notice when a failure event happens.

(For a similar analog, consider NT kernel BSODs, or RAM parity errors. You will note that rather than simply ignore the error and move on, the proper thing to do is halt on a critical error, so as to prevent further, silent, data-corruption. NTFS's journaling mechanisms fail that test.)

From MS KB article 314835:

The drawback is that relatively minor corruption can snowball into major corruption. Therefore, consider this option only if keeping the server online is more important than guarding the integrity of the data that is stored on the corrupted volume.

and

Note also that NTFS does not guarantee the integrity of user data after an instance of disk corruption, even if you immediately run a full CHKDSK operation. There might be files that CHKDSK cannot recover, and files that CHKDSK does recover might still be internally corrupted. It remains vitally important that you protect mission-critical data by performing periodic backups or by using some other robust method of data recovery.

"using some other robust method of data-recovery". Meaning, MS strongly suggests that after encountering NTFS corruption, that you restore from a backup, if there is a question of whether or not your user data has maintained its integrity. Sometimes, a false sense of security (or data-integrity), is worse than no security (or journalling-based metadata-only integrity) at all.

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Likewise, NTFS has corner-cases that can actually impede system functionality, such as excessive MFT fragmentation preventing proper booting. I'm not aware of any such corner-cases with FAT32.

In all my years of supporting NT I've never seen that happen. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that you probably have a better chance of the PC catching fire.

Link here
While it may not be common, it is possible. FAT is not susceptible to that failure mode.

Originally posted by: Nothinman

The overhead of NTFS does take a toll on performance generally.

The only real overhead is in the security, everything else is generally faster.

Reductions in performance, going from FAT to NTFS:
http://forums.devshed.com/t25805/s.html
http://support.microsoft.com/d...x?scid=kb;en-us;307881
http://forum.pcstats.com/showthread.php?t=25357
http://forums.speedguide.net/s...php?t=97901&page=2
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cook/Cluster.htm
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/index3.html
What's really interesting, is punching in "NTFS" into digit-life's search box, and looking at all of their HD benchmark reviews. On every single one of them (that I looked at, half a dozen at least), no matter what size of HD, controller, etc., the NTFS scores were notably lower than the FAT32 ones. (Mostly WinBench graphs.)
http://www.digit-life.com/arti.../winbench-results.html

Originally posted by: Nothinman

But likewise, it would be equally incorrect to claim that FAT32 was all bad as well.

The only things FAT is good for is sharing disks with OSes that don't support NTFS and very small devices like flash devices and such and even now that the 1G and larger ones are getting more popular I would say FAT isn't a good idea for some of those either.

Either that, or in applications where the RAM or seek-time overheads of NTFS are unwarranted, especially in applications that need to add/delete many small files rapidly. (Web cache server, perhaps?) NTFS is horrendously slow when adding/deleting files in rapid succession, because it has to keep directories in sorted order. VMS was similar in that way, I believe.

I wouldn't recommend NTFS for flash-based devices either, it generates far more write cycles than FAT does, and would wear out the device much faster.

Edit: Apparently Microsoft themselves recommend, as a "best practice", leaving your OS boot drive as a FAT filesystem, and only using NTFS for your data. Link (Interestingly, note the "winntas" in the URL - meaning NT Advanced Server. So even on servers, MS recommends that FAT has its place, specifically for data-recovery purposes, which is also the strongest reason that I also suggest it, for that very same purpose.)

 

[Nothinman]

You are correct, of course, but that in no way negates the point that short of complete destruction (which could happen to either FAT or NTFS), FAT32 is much easier to repair by hand due to its inherent simplicity. Also, it makes me wonder what kind of overhead there is to update two non-contiguous MFT copies, in terms of disk-seek time.

Complete destruction would be much more possible on a FAT filesystem because the FAT is smaller (i.e. less sectors have to go bad) and I believe the MFT mirror isn't right next to the MFT, but I could be wrong on that one. The MFT updates are logged to the same journal before happening so there's probably some reordering of writes that happens to keep the seeking down.

Which is actually good, because you can't fail to notice when a failure event happens.

Oh yes you can, hibernate the OS, change one of the FAT volumes on the box and then wakeup the OS and watch how it silently discards the changes to the filesystem and breaks your filesystem.

"using some other robust method of data-recovery". Meaning, MS strongly suggests that after encountering NTFS corruption, that you restore from a backup, if there is a question of whether or not your user data has maintained its integrity. Sometimes, a false sense of security (or data-integrity), is worse than no security (or journalling-based metadata-only integrity) at all.

No sh!t. In the same way that if I had a drive that developed a bad sector in a FAT filesystem and chkdsk said it had moved the data and marked the sector bad, I would still verify the data either with a checksum or by restoring a backup because there's no guarantee that chkdsk did it's job right.

Link here
While it may not be common, it is possible. FAT is not susceptible to that failure mode.

And according to that article neither is Win2K or above, so it was most likely a driver bug and not a design flaw in NTFS.

Reductions in performance, going from FAT to NTFS:

Duh, convert used to create NTFS filesystems with a 512b cluster size. If you created the filesystem with format, like you should, you would get larger clusters which would be faster.

Either that, or in applications where the RAM or seek-time overheads of NTFS are unwarranted, especially in applications that need to add/delete many small files rapidly

You really think FAT is faster at adding/deleting a lot of little files? Just try creating a directory with 30,000 files in it and see how long it takes on both filesystems, NTFS will crush FAT. And on top of that I think FAT has a limit of 32768 files per directory but I'm not 100% sure.

NTFS is horrendously slow when adding/deleting files in rapid succession, because it has to keep directories in sorted order

And FAT is horrendously slow when dealing with directories that contain more than a few hundred files.

Edit: Apparently Microsoft themselves recommend, as a "best practice", leaving your OS boot drive as a FAT filesystem, and only using NTFS for your data. Link (Interestingly, note the "winntas" in the URL - meaning NT Advanced Server. So even on servers, MS recommends that FAT has its place, specifically for data-recovery purposes, which is also the strongest reason that I also suggest it, for that very same purpose.)

Once again that article was written for NT 4, with the introduction of the Recovery Console and WinPE there's no reason to do that.

 

[bsobel]

I gotta ask why, FAT is a horribly inefficent and hard to recover after error (such as power loss).

FAT was never designed to scale to today's size drives. FAT32 was just a horrible hack to give the 9x platform more runway. There is no recovery capabilities in the file system other than the redundant FAT copy (and no way to know which copy is more up to date). While this is my opinion, I say this having worked on Norton Disk Doctor and Norton Speed Disk, I know the file system fairly well.

does nothing...Typical rant deleted.... Corner Cases .... typical misinformation deleted....

Yea, ok VL.

Bill