NTFS not Seeing FAT 32 (W2K)

[adamdelves]

This might be a bit of a strange question. However today a friend brought his hard drive round and asked if i'd back up his important files as the operating system had failed and required reinstalling.

I run Windows 2000 on an NTFS drive and am well aware that for security reasons a FAT32 drive is unable to see NTFS partitions. However, when I connected my friends FAT 32 hard drive. Windows 2000 could not recognise the file system. The only way it could be seen was to run from a boot disk in MS-Dos mode. For obvious reasons i was then unable to copy files to the NTFS disk.

I was wondering why Windows 2000 was unable to see a FAT 32 file system and whether this is normal or whether my OS is buggy.

Thnaks in advance,
ADAM

:))) Hmmm - 6000th Post - Yay</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by adamdelves on 12/18/02 16:15.</P>

[7ate9]

FAT cannot see NTFS, and NTFS cannot see FAT. You want try to use the File System convert tool on his drive to switch it from FAT to NTFS. However, once its in NTFS, there's no going back. Get to a DOS prompt and type convert x: /fs:ntfs.

7ate9
WinGuides Driver Guide</font color=blue> (http://www.winguides.com/drivers/><font)

[adamdelves]

Windows ME doesn't support NTFS though does it. I read in Windows help that you could format drives as FAT32 so I made the assumption that you could also see them. I really think that the incompatability is a bit odd.

Quoted from Microsoft Windows 2000 Help:

A file system is the overall structure in which files are named, stored, and organized. Windows 2000 supports three file sytems: FAT, FAT32, and NTFS.

[7ate9]

Good point, you'll only be able to get NTFS on NT, 2000, and XP. Whereas FAT can be used on any Windows OS. There must be a way for you to get to those files though, I just cant think of anything off the top of my head right now. Hmmm...

7ate9
WinGuides Driver Guide</font color=blue> (http://www.winguides.com/drivers/><font)

[7ate9]

Hmmm, now I'm confusing myself. I think I may have led you in the wrong direction. Can someone else back me up or set me straight? I'm starting to hear conflicting theories on this now /images/forums/icons/crazy.gif

7ate9
WinGuides Driver Guide</font color=blue> (http://www.winguides.com/drivers/><font)

[BertImmenschuh]

adamdelves, you deserve a bit more explanation about file systems.

FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS don't 'read' anything, the Operating System does the reading/using of the file system.

MS-DOS 6.22/Win95/95A and earlier can work only with FAT16 hard drives with a 2GB/2047MB partition size limit.

Win95B/95C/98/ME can work with FAT16 and FAT32.

The DOS that is part of Win95B and later is different and can work with FAT32 drives.

None of the above can see/work with NTFS.

WinNT4 can work with FAT16 and NTFS 4 only [not FAT32 unless a late Service Pack changed that, haven't checked].

Win2000 and WinXP can work with FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS 5 [converts NTFS 4 to NTFS 5 on an upgrade].

You can have FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS partitions/drives in the same computer when using Win2000 or WinXP.

Networked computers are not part of this particular equation as they do not have to know the drive formatting of other computers.


Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement

[BertImmenschuh]

7ate9, didn't mean to leave you out, just forgot to put you in.

Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement

[gln]

The basic Q remains unanswered still. Can NTFS read FAT32 drive and backup the data on FAT32 to NTFS?

[mysterywolf]

fat12 is long extinct for hard drives.
fat16 (commonly called fat) can only read fat.
fat32 is an enhanced form of fat16 since dos6.22 and can read fat16 and fat32 but not ntfs.
ntfs can read ntfs and read both fats but format sys disk as fat16. (or ntfs)

win2000 and xp is based on ntfs and so can read all and can now format sys as fat32 as well.... however installing initially with sys disk as basic fat and/or inluding compression and/or drive overlays /boot managers in the mix can give weirdos.
a drive is not ntfs...a partition on that drive can be formatted with ntfs.

if a partition cannot be recognised through the OS but can via a boot floppy then modifying the contents is very dodgy...even is it seems to work at first...

you might get away with it but you might run into future problems i suspect!

[mysterywolf]

ps
my thinking is that youre mates screwed up his partition table. ... the contents now acting as though from an earlier format. your 2000 recognised the format it should be and tried to use it as such...but could make no sense of it.
your boot disk being more primitive did not interpret but simply treated it at face value. i hope that his data on your pc is okay and not trashed by that process!!!!

[BertImmenschuh]

The basic answer is still "FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS don't 'read' anything, the Operating System does the reading/using of the file system.", there's no applications with the names of FAT, FAT32, or NTFS on the computer, it's all built into the Operating System.

<font color=blue>Anything Win2000 or WinXP can do on NTFS they can also do on FAT32 as far as copying/moving data.</font color=blue> The Operating System is still the important player in what can be read or not read. The format of the drive determines the security level available, not much with FAT32 but quite a bit with NTFS. But again, it is the Operating System that is key.

Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement

[mysterywolf]

he's right.

sorry i was trying to avoid overloading the info having failed to come up with a concise way to explain it.....you managed to do it very well!!!!

[BertImmenschuh]

I really hated sounding so strong on the point about the Operating System and drive formats but without the OS nothing can get done. I felt that bit of knowledge is extremely important.

Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement

[mysterywolf]

at least you didn't pick me up on the fat12 thing....

as you probably already know fat16 has a lower limit of 16mb volume size (or 10mb depending where you read the tech info!) . a format of anything smaller is always done at fat12. i.e. floppy disks are formatted as fat12....even the win98 startup which recognises fat32 drives! because as you rightly say it is the OS on the floppy in control and not the type of formatting the floppy has itself.

[adamdelves]

Thanks for all the replies, I was plaesantly surpriesed when I saw all the mail in my inbox with the wealth of information. You'll be pleased to know after about 5 hours of trying to think of something to do we ghosted the hard drive onto another from a Win 95 machine which actually was able to read the drive.

Here's the story - He delteted a file calleds index.dat from the temporay internet files. To him it appeard to have only web addresses in.

His computer then crashed and windows would then not start becuase it couldn't find explorer.exe. I'm actually not sure what caused to it happen but its all sotrted now. Thanks for all the help,

ADAM

[mysterywolf]

i would ask him exactly how he deleted it...that alone wouldn't cause that problem!!

if he did it by using a boot floppy then i would take that floppy disk away from him....or he'll be back sometime!!!!