I have NTFS primary drive. I want to put my friends FAT32 windows 98 drive as my slave drive. I want to back up the data on my NFTS XP drive. Then I want to format my friends FAT32 drive & put data back on the FAT32 drive. Is it possible to move data from FAT32-NTFS, format FAT32 on XP keeping it FAT32 and then moving data from NTFS back to FAT32?

The file system is of no consequence at all. Copying from a FAT32 to an NTFS drive and back to FAT32 is perfectly normal. The data changes not one jot. Copying from one file system to another is no different than taking something out of a square box painted red and putting in a round box painted blue. The item itself doesn't care what kind of box it goes into as long as the OS can get at both boxes. Windows 98 cannot get at an NTFS box but Windows XP can get at both. Stuart

yes it is possible

Just for my own education about this subject.... Is it true that the above copying to/from NTFS and Win98 drives will work because the primary drive in the above senario is the XP NTFS? But...if the Primary drive was the Win98 FAT32...it would not be able to read a secondary drive that was NTFS? In other words the 2 formats are interchangeable for file transfer Only If the boot drive is WinXP NTFS? Thanks

It is the operating system that determines what files systems can be read, not the actual format of the boot drive. Even if Windows XP was formated to FAT32, you would still be able to read and write between FAT32 and NTFS if you installed a slave drive formatted to NTFS. Windows XP includes drivers for FAT32, FAT16 and FAT12 and NTFS Windows 98 can only read the various variations of FAT. Stuart

I agree with the above. So, why would one want to remove the data in order to format just to move the data back? I can not see any reason for doing so. Maybe I am wearing blinders? Bryan

It was the original poster who was wearing blinders Bryan, not you. :-)