NTFS and FAT32 question

[aaroninwv]

My friend is telling me that he needs to reformat his hard drive from NTFS to FAT32, because he can't share or use some special magical files from a computer running Windows NT. He brought his computer over to his boss's house, so his boss could move some files onto his computer. He says that it kept giving him the message "this file can't be used, you have to have a fat32 partition". Now I don't have any computers running NT, but from what I've noticed with 98, XP should be able to set up a network with older OS's and then move files back and forth, is this not the case with NT? Perhaps these are some magical files that can't be stored in a NTFS partition? I don't know what program/files these are exactly, and he didn't know himself to tell me. Maybe there are programs that have to be run under a certain file system? I don't know, but my guess is he didn't have the network set up correct, or something along those lines.

 

[marneus]

If you use W95/W98/W98se or Win ME, these OS's cannot read a NTFS formatted partition but a NT3.51,Nt4,Win2000 & Win XP can read both FAT32 & NTFS

ie if ne has a NT -based system & a W9X system needs access to that NTFS partiton it will not work... U can get a 3rd party software program for the W9x machine so that it can read NTFS

Trust me I know what I'm doing... ooops, grab the cat...

 

[aaroninwv]

98 can't access a NTFS drive, but it can be networked with a system using NTFS, and read a shared folder. 98 isn't actually reading the drive of the XP system, the XP system is and relaying the info to the 98 system (from what I understand). I've had win98 systems networked with 2000/XP systems, and been able to share files back and forth. I've never heard of any files that can't be sent over a network, which is why I think my friend was doing something wrong.

 

[lunitic]

correct: win98 cannot use a NTFS partition directly (but some utilities can), but win98 can access NTFS files shared over a network. Win98 isn't even aware on what file system the shared files are installed, so the message that the files should be FAT32 implies that he attached the NTFS drive to a computer which doesn't support NTFS.

Maybe:
1. the NTFS version is newer than the OS supports
2. he is trying some partition management software or backup/restore software to move/restore files to a wrong file system.