Windows Vista with FAT32 ??

Hi....

I have not used Vista so far but I came to know just now that the drive Vista must be installed should be on a NTFS drive (which is so sick ).... I've always been a FAT32 fan all along.....

I know Windows does not allow you to make a FAT32 partition greater than 32 GB of size but can read FAT32 partitions upto 128 GB or so.... So to solve this issue some 3rd party utilities can be used to creater larger size FAT32 partitions....

But anyway does anyone know why Vista is strict with installing only on NTFS partitions ? And is there any way to install Vista on a FAT32 partition ? Or may be is it possible to install Vista on a NTFS partition first and then after the installation convert the partition to FAT32 ??

 

it forces you to do that because FAT32 SUCKS on anything bigger then 3.9 GB since it cant handle files bigger then ~4GB

 

Well, Slayer said it... Though in a different way than I would have

Have a read here - http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

FAT32's usefulness is limited for most users, with the exception of USB flash drives and maybe drives used for backup purposes. NTFS is the way to go. It's more efficient in it's use of space due to the smaller cluster size and it's ability to handle errors is greatly improved over FAT32.

 

But not all people come across files with size greater than 4 GB isnt it ? Also reading and writing to NTFS partitions under linux poses many problems.....

 

If you're concerned about Linux compatibility then make a 10 to 15GB NTFS partition for Vista, another partition (file system of your choice) for Linux, and keep your data on a third partition (file system of your choice).

 

That is not what I actually meant.... I meant accessing all the data from Linux partition.... The thing is you cant access the files present on the main Vista partition from linux.... I've heard there are some NTFS driver modules that can be built over the linux kernel to access them but not actually sure how worthy they are...

Of course if i get my laptop with Vista loaded I would probably be having to use such a setup only (first NTFS partition only for Vista files, a linux boot partition, my other fat32 data partitions, a linux swap partition and finall the linux partition)

 

nowadays that is not true all you have to do is install the ntfs-3g packet for your distro and then edit fstab from ntfs to ntfs-3g and remount and your done

 

Why would you be a FAT32 Fan?

 

NTFS read/write works just fine with Linux (I know from personal experience). As INCslayer stated above, ntfs-3g has been around for a while now, and it works pretty much perfectly. A little google searching will provide tutorials for getting it installed for your particular distro and mounting your NTFS partitions to Linux, although it's really not hard at all.

 

I like FAT32 because it is easily preferable for recovery from DOS and mini-windows 98 (in the Hiren's boot cd) when my OS crashes.... If I use NTFS then I got to load DOS with NTFS drivers to view the files.... Now I guess there are some read/write drivers as well for accessing NTFS FS under DOS too.... I guess it all depends when I get my laptop and give it a try