NTFS is not a must for xp user

RobCur

Banned
Oct 4, 2002
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Thought it is recommended by ms, it has some drawbacks. Like having corrupted harddrive and unable to recover. It is for the extra paranoid people, i have no need for it...
btw, fat32 can be formatted above 32gb and up to 2000gb just like ntfs.
I LMAO when my computer refuses to boot and XP just say can't find ntlr, etc... due to corruption. Dos comes to the rescue with scandisk /autofix bahahaha!!!
thank goodness. btw heres a good read www.novelex.com/techtip.asp
To get around those 32gb barrier imposed by MS in XP, boot into dos with 98/me bootdisk
or use partition magic 8. Also when you try to share files using NTSF, it has to set attrib to all your files which is time consuming, another minus. btw, ms is evil.
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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You may have no need for it, but for the vast majority of people it's the best choice, and many of the people who need FATxx for some reason will know it anyway, so I fail to see the point of this post?
 

RobCur

Banned
Oct 4, 2002
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my point, is that why go ntfs because other suggest you to? hell, we're getting owned... and i don't like it.
 

stash

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2000
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That article is crap. If you have a corrupted hard drive, it most likely needs to be replaced. There is also the recovery console, repair installations, and ERDs that will help you fix things without booting into Windows.

The line about NTFS being slower than FAT32 is really old and lame.

If you have a problem booting your machine on such a regular basis, then you need to be worried about other things.
 

MrChad

Lifer
Aug 22, 2001
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LOL, this post wins my award for stupidest, most incoherent and most ill-informed of the new year. Congrats!
 

Guga

Member
Feb 21, 2003
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LOL

After reading this I can get only to one conclusion.

First learn how to use a OS then you can discuss about it..

FAT is good for beginners. After you start to use your pc seriously you will never want to use FAT

 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: Guga
LOL

After reading this I can get only to one conclusion.

First learn how to use a OS then you can discuss about it..

FAT is good for beginners. After you start to use your pc seriously you will never want to use FAT

I would argue that it's better to get things done right to begin with rather than picking up bad habits that you later on have to get rid of.
 

Guga

Member
Feb 21, 2003
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would argue that it's better to get things done right to begin with rather than picking up bad habits that you later on have to get rid of.

if you think its bad habit having files secure, more reliability on the file system, hability to use quotes, capacity of identifying bad sectors and mark them, etc... It's your opinion..
Not mine.
 

MrChad

Lifer
Aug 22, 2001
13,507
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Originally posted by: Guga
would argue that it's better to get things done right to begin with rather than picking up bad habits that you later on have to get rid of.

if you think its bad habit having files secure, more reliability on the file system, hability to use quotes, capacity of identifying bad sectors and mark them, etc... It's your opinion..
Not mine.

Reread his post. I believe he was saying that it's best to begin with NTFS and get used to the extra security options than to start with the "bad habit" of FAT32.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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Thought it is recommended by ms, it has some drawbacks. Like having corrupted harddrive and unable to recover

Sorry but you have a much higher chance of that happening with FAT than with NTFS, if you understood the structures of both you'd realize that FAT is extremely fragile and should never be used for data you would like to keep.
 

Zelmo3

Senior member
Dec 24, 2003
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Dude, who really cares what filesystem you're using? It's transparent to most users.
The only problem I have with any filesystem lies with NTFS, because Linux as yet can't write to it. So whenever I download or rip something in Linux that I want to have available to all my OSs (music, movies, South Park episodes), I have a FAT32-formatted drive to hold it all, and I can get to and use all that data with Win98, WinXP, and *nix.
 

CTho9305

Elite Member
Jul 26, 2000
9,214
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Originally posted by: Zelmo3
Dude, who really cares what filesystem you're using? It's transparent to most users.

It's transparent most of the time. That one time every couple years where something blows up, you'll seriously regret using FAT32 over NTFS. Plus, on multi-user systems, the fine-grained permissions provided by NTFS are also useful.
 

yak8998

Member
May 2, 2003
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Dude, who really cares what filesystem you're using? It's transparent to most users.

Umn, the engine in a car is 'transparent' in the same way...


The origional post was so pointless. Can you elaborate or at least make a good arguement plz?
 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
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Hmm, I don't recall ever having problems with NTFS, yet I appreciate so many of the features it has. And that's just on my personal computers. Try telling anyone who runs an IT department that FAT32 is the answer and they will look at you with a look of pure confusion at how you manage to dress yourself in the morning.
 

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
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my point, is that why go ntfs because other suggest you to? hell, we're getting owned... and i don't like it.

Thats your point? Egad man, you are hillariously misinformed:) Thanks for the Chuckle:beer:
 

THUGSROOK

Elite Member
Feb 3, 2001
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id rather use FAT32 myself.
its limitations dont bother me, and it is faster.
NTFS doesnt offer me anything i care about, and its slower.

but then again, i hate WinXP ;)
even if i was using Win2kPro id still run FAT32.

its just a personal preference ~ some ppl would rather die then not use NTFS. (tho im not sure why) ;)

:D
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
id rather use FAT32 myself.
its limitations dont bother me, and it is faster.
NTFS doesnt offer me anything i care about, and its slower.

but then again, i hate WinXP ;)
even if i was using Win2kPro id still run FAT32.

its just a personal preference ~ some ppl would rather die then not use NTFS. (tho im not sure why) ;)

:D

If you need FAT for some reason, like Linux interoperativbility, that's one thing, but one myth that REALLY needs to die is this "FAT is faster than NTFS" BS.
That may well be true with 2 GB HD's and other ancient equipment, but guess what, DOS will be faster than Windows on an ancient computer too, but I don't see anyone runinng DOS on their 3.2 GHz P4's and A64's.

With the hardware we have these days the difference is for all intents and purposes null, except when you start really taxing the filesystem(tens or hundreds of thousands of files for example), that's when NTFS shines, it will annihilate FAT in terms of performance.
 

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
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its just a personal preference ~ some ppl would rather die then not use NTFS. (tho im not sure why)

*Multi-user environment...access control
*Audio/Video editing....Large File support
*Power User......file system reliability, individual file/folder compression

Large file support alone is enough for me. Personally, I think NTFS is ~ fast as Fat32 using the same cluster size.
 

kursplat

Golden Member
May 2, 2000
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hell, we're getting owned... and i don't like it.
btw, ms is evil.
so don't use it . 3/4 of the people here would LOVE to help you set up a nix box.
ECS mobo Duron1.3ghz 1.5gb sdram pc133 48x24x48 liteon cdrw 2x120gb samsung hd 30gb seagate hd 19' mag innovation monitor 32mb PCI SIS 305 Accelerated 2D VGA, 3D very slow
looking forward to half-life 2 i see...
TTFN
 

kd7fhd

Senior member
Dec 5, 2000
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FATxx has been a decent file system in it's time. For those who are spoiled by large (read gigabyte) hard drives and p4/athalon processors coupled with win2k or xp ntfs makes sense as it is the next generation of file systems. It too will be replace in time (longhorn?).

BUT, when I was using my Cordata portable computer which had a 8088 processor and two 360k floppies I was thrilled to finally put a 20 meg hard drive in it... made it a completely new computer. Oh, and I really didn't give a hoot as to which file system it used as long as it worked!

NTFS has it advantages and disadvantages. Like rbV5 mentioned one of the best things about ntfs is the ability to create files over the 2 gig barrier imposed by FATxx. Very useful for video editing. Most of the disadvantages are going away now as there are support programs that allow you to recover data such as NTFSdos and Getdataback NTFS But in the beginning buyer beware!

Oh, and before anyone says anything about that ancient Cordata, I developed a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet that tracked the daily maintenance of 136 helicopters and printed out two different reports on a daily basis. And that was BEFORE I put the 20 meg hardcard in!!!

So instead of flaming a person that prefers an older file system, just keep your mouth shut. It is extremely likely that as time goes on and you develope your expertise in the current offerings of today's computers you also will be unlikely to want to change when new technology comes along.
 

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
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NTFS's faults don't have anything to with it's technical or compatability ability.

it's just that MS is completely incapable of creating a proper rescue disk.

Why the hell do people still have to go back to dos to fix anything? Sure dos was good for it, but now isn't it a bit dated?


Because they have too. That's why.

Plus when I still dual booted the windows partitions were NTFS. I had a small fat32 partition for transfering files to windows. Linux can read files from NTFS just fine. In a few months most distros will have the ability to write to NTFS partitions. Some ones can right now using limited propriatory tools. SuSE can I beleive. We have tools that can safely (as much as anything else) resize NTFS partitions.

If you need some help dealing with NTFS, check out open source tools like the Trinity rescue disk. I've never used it, but I probably will someday.

You can create file images, mirror disks with it. You can reset windows passwords or clear them. You can fix lilo bootsectors, you can run and update it's virus scanner for possibly infected machines. It runs from CD and attempts to configure itself for each machine automaticly you use it in. It has a dhcp client and complete networking capabilities. You can repair NTFS (and fat) partitions with it. NTFS reading a writing is supported, but ntfs 5 (windows 2000 NTFS) is still kinda iffy. It has a SMB client so that you can transfer files to and from with a windows server.

For instance if you have a OS that is corrupted or can't boot up, not all is lost. If you can access the corrupt partition then set it up read only. Set up networking and become a client for a server. You can then copy as many of the important files you can from the corrupted system.

If you can't access the partitions you can use dd and other tools to make a back up image of the partition or entire disk and then transfer that to a network server for discection later. Then you can try to use the repair stuff to fix your partition. If it screws up you always have a image of the partition/drive you can try try again or take it to a place to try to get the files recovered.

Fun stuff.

Of course by using ntfs you can minimalize the possiblity of this stuff happening. :)

Now I will have to download it and try it out for myself.
 

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
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Originally posted by: kd7fhd

So instead of flaming a person that prefers an older file system, just keep your mouth shut. It is extremely likely that as time goes on and you develope your expertise in the current offerings of today's computers you also will be unlikely to want to change when new technology comes along.


Ya, but are you going to try to tell me that Fat32 is superior to NTFS and that I should trust my files and information instead?

Sure Fat32 was OK. But did you realy have much of a choice in the matter? Or was FAT16 superior to FAT32?


I don't have a problem with people using fat for anything. It still has limited uses like creating USB devices that can transfer files from bunches of different OSes or if you have some legacy win9x or DOS stuff going on. But's that about it.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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FATxx has been a decent file system in it's time

Not really, it was ineffecient and fragile from the start but that didn't matter because disks were very small and the people using computers didn't have a problem restoring backups or reinstalling sh!t.

For those who are spoiled by large (read gigabyte) hard drives and p4/athalon processors coupled with win2k or xp ntfs makes sense as it is the next generation of file systems. It too will be replace in time (longhorn?).

You mean recent past, current and next generation systems. And NTFS may be replaced at some point but it'll be a long time, Longhorn will use NTFS (with WinFS being a service like the indexing service) and there's no real reason to replace it yet.

But in the beginning buyer beware!

Beginning? NTFS has been used for almost 10 years now, it's not our fault if it's taken that long for people to catch on.

So instead of flaming a person that prefers an older file system, just keep your mouth shut. It is extremely likely that as time goes on and you develope your expertise in the current offerings of today's computers you also will be unlikely to want to change when new technology comes along.

How about instead of crying about how things were in the past you get with the times? Noone cares about 20M drives running 12-bit FAT any more except for historians. FAT is a terrible filesystem and needs to be retired with your 360k floppies, NTFS is the filesystem NT was designed to run on and whether you like it or not WinXP is NT 5.1.
 

spyordie007

Diamond Member
May 28, 2001
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Most everything that needs to be said has already been said. I'm sorry to hear about your problems; however they really do seem to be your problems. NTFS is a signifigant improvement over the aged FAT file system, it is not only more stable but offers many additional features that FAT cant touch (Security, stability, scalability, encryption, compression, etc.).

This thread sounds mostly like you wanted to rant so I'm going to leave it at that.

-Spy