Why is my notebooks HD formatted in FAT32?

Is there anyway to change that, I have lots of files/folder over 4gb and I can't put them on the HD

 

ntfs converter. Its on your desktop. Why? Probably becuase someone at asus doesnt realize that its the stupid to use fat

 

ahhh I see, *smacks head*.

 

ASUS gives the end user the option to chose Fat32 or NTFS and makes it easy to change to NTFS for many that want it.

Only a few handfull of people would want Fat32, and since converting to NTFS doesn't take too long, it not a bad thing to have, because it satisfies all.

 

Yep. I just got my A8Js today, and noticed that the hard drive was formatted with FAT32. Totally idiotic if you ask me considering how often data gets mangled in FAT32 and all the advantages of NTFS. Is there any reason at all why anyone would want FAT32? Why wouldn't you want to format NTFS at the factory?

 

Only one primary reason for FAT32: compatibility.

 

It is a mystery to me why ASUS formats with FAT32, and why they create two partitions with the largest one holding the OS.

Go figure

 

Unlike you smart fellas, I saw the link to convert but was like "Heck, I'll just reformat with the recovery disk and do it from there". After I did that, I still had all the bloatware I wanted removed and the link was gone too to convert to NTFS as there was no option when "reformatting" (really just "recovering"). I learned a lot though... Heh.

-rye

 

My understanding is that FAT32 is needed if you plan on having more than one OS on your NB. There are still plenty of programs around that can't work in NTFS. And while you can easily convert from FAT32 to NTFS, you can't convert the other way without losing all your data.

So it's probably just easier for them to do it that way and let the end user choose.

 

I can see that argument if you're dual-booting with Linux - currently, stable NTFS drivers for Linux are read-only (though there exists a brand new driver that's in beta that has full read/write access to NTFS and reportedly works well.)

Though in that case, the prudent thing to do would be to have an NTFS primary partition, and a secondary FAT32 partition devoted to sharing between Windows and Linux.

 

Hey meldroc! Enjoying your A8Js? Welcome to our friendly Asus community

Not that ArsTechnica isn't friendly, but they are all Thinkpad guys over there

I don't know why Asus uses FAT32 / two partitions for the Ensembles. I hope they change their mind within the next two years before I buy my next notebook.

 

The reason it is in fat32 is that people are thought to be upgrading from win 98 or previous.

This is getting to be a little out of date but not long ago most all notebooks were like this.

As far as the partitions Ive actually made my install partition 6gb larger than it started now