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Installation of XP

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by jones2021

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When installing XP for the first time and when it prompts you to format hard drive either to FAT or NTFS which is best for the application when installation XP

7 replies

by lmon

I would use the NTFS over FAT. With NTFS you have better security options than FAT. It will accept hard drives up to 1 terabyte.

The only use of FAT would be if you dual booting with an OS that does not support NTFS.

by thechas

There are only 2 reasons to consider formatting a drive as FAT32 under XP:

1. The drive has less than 2GB of capacity.
NTFS uses more drive space on small drives than FAT32 does to set up the file system.

2. You need to be able to access the drive from a DOS boot or Windows 9X / Me.
DOS based operating systems cannot read NTFS volumes without the use of 3rd party utilities.

If the answer to both items above is no, NTFS offers better security and stability over FAT32.

Chas

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