should i use fat32 for win partitions instead of ntfs?

**Josh83** · 04-02-2005, 12:26 PM

hi all

i'm completely re-organizing the structure of my harddisk, and i'd like to know your opinion on the following question.

should i use fat32 for windows partitions instead of ntfs so i could edit files on that partitions with linux? because as far as i know linux can only read from ntfs but not write on it.

another question:
i wanna have a harddisk with media files that both (windows and linux) should be able to use. what file system would you recommend for that? fat32?

thanks for your opinion!
josh

**OErjan** · 04-02-2005, 12:46 PM

i would recomend a fat32 system on ONE of your partitions.
BUT aslong as you are aware that fat32 has a few limitations, like no single file over 4Gig (minus une byte) and it canot utilize the acess control used in both linux and NTFS.
as far as I am concerned you can go with a fat32 partition for "shared content".
it has worked for me without a flaw for years.

**fingers99** · 04-02-2005, 02:34 PM

With OErjan 100%.

If you use fat32 for all of your XP install you'll cripple XP. NTFS isn't the world's greatest file system, but it is the best Windows can use. By having a fat32 partition as well you have the best of all worlds.

**mr_ed** · 04-03-2005, 05:50 AM

Me three - it's what I'm running now. For a few days this week XP wasn't actually booting, but I didn't miss it because I could still pull the files I wanted from the NTFS partition into Linux. (I think XP was worried that I was going to repartition it out of existence - it started booting again without another complaint!)

-- Ed