I understand that during the installation of Windows XP you have a choice of using NTFS or FAT 32. Is there an advantage or disadvantage as to which one to use.

Its really all a matter of preference NTFS- More Stable - More Security Features - files take up less Space Fat32- Faster (Some say)

fat32 is compatible with win9x ntfs isn't and once you go to ntfs, you would need delpart.exe to go back to fat32 and then fdisking and formating, from http://www.winsupersite.com/FAQ/whistler.asp Q. So which file system should I use? A. You should always use NTFS in Windows XP unless you are going to dual-boot a system with Windows 9x/Me and XP and wish to access your XP partition from the old 9x-based OS. Remember that Windows 9x/Me cannot access NTFS file systems. However... You can access NTFS partitions over a network. Q. I've heard that you can convert drives to NTFS when upgrading, but if I do this, can I still uninstall XP and return to my previous Windows 9x/Me version? A. No. If you think you're going to want to uninstall XP, do not allow it to convert your drives during Setup. Instead, wait a few weeks and ensure that XP works on your system first, and then run the convert.exe command line tool to convert any FAT or FAT32 drives to NTFS, on the fly, without destroying any of your data. so it depends on what you want to do, if you want to just run xp ntfs is the way to go,for added security etc. from techtv; NTFS and FAT32 are file systems used by Microsoft. NTFS is more robust and secure than FAT32. If all you want to do is install XP, go with NTFS. If you want to make the computer a multi-boot system, you might want to consider FAT32, but you don't have to go with it. If you're concerned about being able to see files across partitions, you should make the shared partitions FAT32.

I have sort of a related question/comment about the NTFS/FAT 32 system. When I upgraded to XP, the installation software gave me a few choices to use NTFS, FAT 32, or leave as-is. I chose NTFS during the installation. Once XP was all installed and running however, I find the OS is reporting the disc as a FAT 32. Why would this be? I KNOW for a FACT that I did indeed choose NTFS when I installed WinXP so, why would the disc be reported as a FAT32? Anyone???

fat32 IS faster but the file structure will degrade over a relatively short time and you will just have to reformat... so if u want best performance for games or whatever go for fat32, but for ease and security i go for NTFS i rest my case your honour

I hear all these persons choosing for NTFS, but I went for FAT32, for the very simle reason that IF XP gets f---ed up, I still can access my pc with a DOS-bootup-disk (made on another PC). I've seen it by a friend of mine who also choose NTFS, and messed his PC up; he couldn't access his pc anymore. And besides that, FAT32 doesn't give any problems at all, not as far as I've seen that is....

Hi If your using Pro with the backup feature you will need to have NTFS to use the shadow copying feature, it will need this if your backing-up system files that are in use e.g. the system partition is being backed up. If you convert to NTFS at a later stage using the 'convert' feature, you may end up with smaller cluster sizes - though I think this may have been addressed in XP. If your just running XP go to NTFS, the OS was designed to use this over FAT32. Phil