fat16 and fat32?

Discussion in 'Software' started by tas121, Sep 1, 2007.

  1. tas121

    tas121 Nibble Poster

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    which file system does windows xp use?
     
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  2. Tinus1959

    Tinus1959 Gigabyte Poster

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    XP can use three systems: fat16, fat32 and NTFS.
    Because fat16 has a lot of limitations, you will never use it in normal situations. When looking for security, very large volumes, reliability and much more, the system should use NTFS.
     
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  3. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Depends on which file system was specified when it was installed on the PC. The preferred file system is NTFS because of its enhanced security features, however there are times when it's necessary to use FAT 32 (although it's still early enough in the morning here to where my foggy brain can't think of any examples). No one I know of uses FAT 16 anymore.

    MIcrosoft has a nice write up on file systems at TechNet.
     
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  4. Spilly

    Spilly Kilobyte Poster

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    Hidden partions for diagnostics etc

    Some early disk clonning software only liked FAT
     
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  5. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    And don't forget that floppies normaly use FAT12.

    Harry.
     
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  6. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    The main reason you would have a FAT partition these days is for backward compatibility with older Microsoft OS's eg the original release of Win95. Having said that, virtualisation software has pretty much done away with needing to multiboot older OS's like that.
     
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  7. tas121

    tas121 Nibble Poster

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    thanks for the info this question came up when i had a test for a i.t position was bugging me for a while now :(
     
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  8. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    so what answer did you write?
     
  9. tas121

    tas121 Nibble Poster

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    i wrote ntfs as i thought that was th right answer
     
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  10. grim

    grim Gigabyte Poster

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    well you're not wrong, i think most people use NTFS with XP

    grim
     
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  11. ManicMonkey

    ManicMonkey Kilobyte Poster

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    does vista actually allow non ntfs installations? if not then multiboot with vista could be ruled out totally.
     
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