Back to basics

The file system that you are running on a particular hard drive partition will determine how much security you can place over the files and folders on your PC. For example, to have the full range of security options available at your disposal a partition will have to be formatted as NTFS rather than FAT or FAT32. The advantages of NTFS are that it's more secure and reliable than its counterparts. It's more able to track disk activity and recover from any errors that may occur. Windows XP comes with its own tool, Convert, for converting FAT drives to NTFS. You'll be glad to hear that the process won't result in the loss of any data as would have been the case if you had used FDISK. Therefore, there's no need to invest in third party partition management software.

Warning!
Before you rush off to convert your existing FAT or FAT 32 partition to NTFS a word of warning. NTFS will not work with Windows 95, 98 or Me as none of them are be able to recognise it. Therefore, if you have a multiboot PC that uses one of these operating systems along with Windows XP, all on the same partition, you will need to ensure that the partition is set up as FAT32. Furthermore, once you've converted a drive to from FAT32 to NTFS there's no going back. The only way to reverse the process is to use the FDISK utility which will result in the loss of all the data on that partition.

Privacy and Security on Windows XP

Converting a drive to NTFS