I'm scared of using NTFS

[simms]

WINXP is optimized for NTFS drives, blah blah blah. I used NTFS for a while and lost access to it. My files were locked down and even though I knew the password I couldn't copy them to a FAT32 drive because of security calls. So I had to reformat.

Is there any reason why I should ever leave FAT32, or was my NTFS just a 1 in a million problem that won't happen again? I hate losing data.



Simon

 

[n0cmonkey]

What do you mean you lost access to the data?

 

[simms]

I could see the files in the dirs, but I couldn't move them to my 2nd HDD which was FAT.
If I run NTFS but choose not to encrypt my system, is the security still on?

 

[Need4Speed]

sounds like that was a permissions problem. not that big of a deal really. next time make sure you have admin rights, then right click on the folder, properties, security, advanced, and then reassign all the folders to the proper user....consider this a crash course, for more details you can google it or try the ms tech base.

 

[MtnMan]

Did you reinstall XP and is the when you lost access? You can go in and set permissions to again access these files.

 

[stash]

Encryption and permissions are not the same thing.

 

[CQuinn]

If you use NTFS Encryption, read this

Its the sticky that has been at the top of this forum for just short of a year now?

Plus, you had no other backup of those files?

NTFS should be the least of your fears.

 

[Sunner]

If you encrypt the files and lose your key, you won't get access to them, that's the whole point of encryption.
Encryption aside, NTFS has other nifty features, most notably for a home user, journaling and ACL's, as well as being far more scalable than FAT32.

 

[glugglug]

Sysinternals has lots of great utilities for windows & DOS.

This includes freeware NTFSDOS to read NTFS partitions from DOS so you can make a bootable floppy that can access all those files (as long as they are not encrypted) to copy between drives.

The "Pro" (pay) version of NTFSDOS lets you write to NTFS partitions from DOS as well.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: simms
WINXP is optimized for NTFS drives, blah blah blah. I used NTFS for a while and lost access to it. My files were locked down and even though I knew the password I couldn't copy them to a FAT32 drive because of security calls. So I had to reformat.

Is there any reason why I should ever leave FAT32, or was my NTFS just a 1 in a million problem that won't happen again? I hate losing data.



Simon

Wow.

You really shouldn't have formatted. Simms, bust out the help files and read up on permissions, ownership and taking ownership. Sorry about your data man, but this really sounds like user error rather than some 1 in a million problem with ntfs.

 

[simms]

I should have rephrased. This was on a personal PC, and I didn't lose access to the files.. my I got a Windows XP STOP error and I had to reformat.

Accessing the disk from DOS was hard IIRC if not impossible. So, let me ask you this: If I don't enable encryption under the folder settings in Windows, will my folders be accessible in DOS like FAT32 drives?

 

[spyordie007]

If I don't enable encryption under the folder settings in Windows, will my folders be accessible in DOS like FAT32 drives?

If you have NTFSDOS as was suggested, yes.

 

[Fencer128]

No - using DOS you cannot read/write NTFS volumes by default - however, there are DOS utilities that allow you to do this (do a google search).

There are also CD bootable linux distros that allow you to do the same thing.

Cheers,

Andy

 

[VirtualLarry]

To put in my 2cents here - that's one of the major reasons why I don't store my files using the MS proprietary, non-publically-documented NTFS filesystem. I stick to FAT32, because of it's relative simplicity, and when the sh*t hits the fan, it's a lot easier to access and recover my data, and even fix filesystem glitches by hand with a disk sector-editor. Granted, that's kind of hardcore and not for everyone, but IMHO, FAT32 still holds advantages over NTFS in those regards.

Don't feel bad about using FAT32 with a modern OS, there's a reason that MS still supports it.

Edit: PS. I thought that the OP's situation was never supposed to happen, that a system crash would cause an inaccessable FS.. that NTFS was "self-healing", because of the metadata journaling support, etc. Hmm...
Maybe MS was wrong about that.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
To put in my 2cents here - that's one of the major reasons why I don't store my files using the MS proprietary, non-publically-documented NTFS filesystem. I stick to FAT32, because of it's relative simplicity, and when the sh*t hits the fan, it's a lot easier to access and recover my data, and even fix filesystem glitches by hand with a disk sector-editor. Granted, that's kind of hardcore and not for everyone, but IMHO, FAT32 still holds advantages over NTFS in those regards.

Don't feel bad about using FAT32 with a modern OS, there's a reason that MS still supports it.

Edit: PS. I thought that the OP's situation was never supposed to happen, that a system crash would cause an inaccessable FS.. that NTFS was "self-healing", because of the metadata journaling support, etc. Hmm...
Maybe MS was wrong about that.

He encrypted it.
Sorry to say, but this is pure user error.

 

[VirtualLarry]

He said, twice, that he had NOT encrypted them. I agree that it sounds like user error though, if they were stored on an NTFS volume, he would have had to take permission to access them once re-installing XP, and likewise, the filesystem is inaccessable to normal DOS.

My supposition that XP actually borked the NTFS filesystem in this case, may have been incorrect though, the OP probably just didn't know how to access them, as he claimed that he could see them (read directory), but was prevented from accessing the files' contents to copy over to another drive. However my suggestion to use FAT32, in case there is a need to access the filesystem from a DOS boot disk, is still a valid point.

Edit: I swear that I thought I had clearly read him stating that he had not encrypted them, but I guess perhaps I read it too quickly. I guess he was speaking of his second installation, and, reading between the lines, it is possibly to imply that he had encrypted the first installation. So I guess he didn't state it explicitly either way, and it is perhaps likely that he did encrypt the first installation. My apologies.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
To put in my 2cents here - that's one of the major reasons why I don't store my files using the MS proprietary, non-publically-documented NTFS filesystem. I stick to FAT32, because of it's relative simplicity, and when the sh*t hits the fan, it's a lot easier to access and recover my data, and even fix filesystem glitches by hand with a disk sector-editor. Granted, that's kind of hardcore and not for everyone, but IMHO, FAT32 still holds advantages over NTFS in those regards.
Don't feel bad about using FAT32 with a modern OS, there's a reason that MS still supports it.

Sorry, your just wrong. FAT32 is a very fragile file system and very prone to corruption. NTFS is not. In fact, in this entire thread, there is not any evidence that NTFS did anything wrong. His system was FUBAR'd by something (unknown at this point) and the user decided to reformat. There is no evidence (at all) that the original data was not sitting there on the drive perfectly recoverable if he bothered to reinstall XP or access the drive on another system.

Edit: PS. I thought that the OP's situation was never supposed to happen, that a system crash would cause an inaccessable FS.. that NTFS was "self-healing", because of the metadata journaling support, etc. Hmm... Maybe MS was wrong about that.

Nice editorial, there just aren't any facts in your post to support it. The fact that his OS wouldn't boot does not indicate that NTFS failed

Bill

 

[imported_Bunter]

Among the safeguards that can be used to prevent this sort of thing, whether using NTFS or FAT32, is to put the OS on its own partition. If something happens to the OS and you feel the need to reformat its partition, you can do so without destroying the "real" data.

Call me paranoid, but the idea of an 80GB drive as "C" concerns me.

Oh, and I have used NTFS since the NT 4 days. It has never given me any lip that FAT32 would not have also given me, and probably a lot less.

 

[CQuinn]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
He said, twice, that he had NOT encrypted them.

"If I run NTFS but choose not to encrypt my system, is the security still on? "

That statement (to me) says that he equated security with encryption on the
previous install.

And while it is possible for XP to bork the NTFS setup, the way the MFT is designed makes
it much harder to accomplish for a whole drive, and much easier for the OS to recover from
than when the FAT32 file table gets corrupted. (Yes, there is a backup FAT file table, and it never
gets used in normal data recovery).

 

[simms]

Whoa. thanks for the responses. It was a while ago, so I can't really remember if I encrypted them or not. The main question is now,

"If I run NTFS but choose not to encrypt my system, is the security still on?"

I'm with FAT32. Granted, now I keep all my personal files on a seperate HDD with a FAT32, so if anything really does go wrong it's a simple unplug of the slave and a reinstall of the master.

 

[RobsTV]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
To put in my 2cents here - that's one of the major reasons why I don't store my files using the MS proprietary, non-publically-documented NTFS filesystem. I stick to FAT32, because of it's relative simplicity, and when the sh*t hits the fan, it's a lot easier to access and recover my data, and even fix filesystem glitches by hand with a disk sector-editor. Granted, that's kind of hardcore and not for everyone, but IMHO, FAT32 still holds advantages over NTFS in those regards.

Don't feel bad about using FAT32 with a modern OS, there's a reason that MS still supports it.

I agree 100%.
Having to recover data off of customers crashed drives is a pain with NTFS, but never a problem with FAT32, as there are plenty of DOS utilities that quickly get the job done.

I do use an NTFS for a partition I assign to handle Video (like 15 gig DVB-S HDTV recordings, etc), but the rest of the system is always multiple partitions using FAT32.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: RobsTV

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
To put in my 2cents here - that's one of the major reasons why I don't store my files using the MS proprietary, non-publically-documented NTFS filesystem. I stick to FAT32, because of it's relative simplicity, and when the sh*t hits the fan, it's a lot easier to access and recover my data, and even fix filesystem glitches by hand with a disk sector-editor. Granted, that's kind of hardcore and not for everyone, but IMHO, FAT32 still holds advantages over NTFS in those regards.

Don't feel bad about using FAT32 with a modern OS, there's a reason that MS still supports it.

I agree 100%.
Having to recover data off of customers crashed drives is a pain with NTFS, but never a problem with FAT32, as there are plenty of DOS utilities that quickly get the job done.

Than your problem is that you're still stuck in DOS (which wouldnt matter with NTFSDOS, it's only been mentioned several times so far in this thread).

if it wasnt clear before I'll spell it out for you:
So long as the data is not encrypted data CAN be recovered from an NTFS volume.

 

[bsobel]

So long as the data is not encrypted data CAN be recovered from an NTFS volume.

Actually , with the right tools, the data is MORE likely to be recovered from the NTFS volume since volume corruption (to the point of not getting the files back or crosslinking them beyond belief) is less likely to happen and more recoverable if it does.

Bill