Hey guys. I am running XP Pro on a P4 1.7gHz PC, with a FAT32 file system. I was wonderin', if I change to NTFS with the run command 'convert c: /fs:ntfs', will I lose ANY data at all? Will any programs become unusable? What are the benefits? Also, will I be able to see my other XP system on my network that has FAT32? And access those files? What if I were to change that file system to NTFS as well? Thanks!

No. No. Lots. Yes. Yes. No, you won't lose data if you convert to NTFS. Will any programs become unusable? Very unlikely. As long as the OS knows how to deal with NTFS which of course XP does, then the apps should be happy. Benefits. Security is the biggest one. NTFS is also a bit more reliable and some may argue it's faster but probably not enough to notice. As far as accessing the files across the network - many people think they would not be able to see a network drive that is NTFS. If you are accessing it across the network then the client does not know what file system it is attaching to. That is a function of the host machine. So if you convert the drive the network clients will never know it. Good luck.

Just thought I'd mention that I read somewhere on Microsoft's site that it was not recommended to convert from FAT32 to NTFS. Didn't really read the article because I had no desire to do this so don't really know the reasons, something to do with boot times I think, but as they say "knowledge is power"