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    fat32 opposed to ntfs on acer c300

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by hoffmanbike, May 9, 2005.

  1. hoffmanbike

    hoffmanbike Notebook Enthusiast

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    does anyone have a clue as to why acer is using the fat32 file system rather then ntfs on the travelmate c300? also is there any way to change it without seriously screwing up my computer.[?] any insight would be great. thanks.

    J. Zack Hoffman Admin. Assistant at UMass Lowell's Helpdesk
     
    hoffmanbike, May 9, 2005
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  2. bmhome1

    bmhome1 Notebook Consultant

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    It has to do with the hidden restore partitioning scheme and the recovery CD's.

    Converting FAT32 to NTFS is exceedingly easy and simple to do live using the Computer Management tool inside Administrative Tools.

    Once converted to NTFS it cannot be reverted back to FAT32 nor will a recovery install from CD maintain the NTFS format.

    I recommend using drive imaging backup software True Image to archive to external USB drives.
     
    bmhome1, May 9, 2005
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  3. hoffmanbike

    hoffmanbike Notebook Enthusiast

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    where can i find the true image software, i'd rather have ntfs seeing as how i've heard it's more stable (is this true?). do you think my restore cd would still work if i needed to reinstall[?]

    J. Zack Hoffman Admin. Assistant at UMass Lowell's Helpdesk
     
    hoffmanbike, May 9, 2005
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  4. bmhome1

    bmhome1 Notebook Consultant

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    Acronis makes True Image 8.0. It makes backing up and restoring your whole OS an easy process.

    NTFS is supposed to be better able to handle errors and data corruption recovery than FAT32, additionally FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB which can be limiting for large media files.

    Using the Acer recovery CD's will only erase and reformat back to FAT32 and fresh install XP. True Image will fully restore your exact OS to the state of when archived.
     
    bmhome1, May 9, 2005
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  5. hoffmanbike

    hoffmanbike Notebook Enthusiast

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    would you recomend using norton ghost in place of true image?

    J. Zack Hoffman Admin. Assistant at UMass Lowell's Helpdesk
     
    hoffmanbike, May 10, 2005
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  6. bmhome1

    bmhome1 Notebook Consultant

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    True Image is vastly easier to use, I have both and Ghost is much less intuitive. I have restored from backups the full OS six times (getting back to a prior state) with TI and it worked perfectly each time. And, couldn't have been any more simple to accomplish.
     
    bmhome1, May 11, 2005
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