[Gllug] convert ntfs to fat32

[j.roberts]

Diana Scott wrote:
> it is a dual boot machine. I understand ntfs is primarily for Windows 
> but my fear is that would ntfs partition has more chance to crash or 
> corrupt when in use with both Windows and linux eg ubuntu?
> 
> Please advise.

Not sure I can advise but can certainly comment.

The main reason I have for using fat32 is as a common data partition on 
dual-boot Linux/Windows laptops.

Traditionally, writes to NTFS were not well supported on Linux (as the 
whole filesystem had had to be reverse engineered without 
documentation). However, I have not heard of a lot of problems with NTFS 
writes over the last couple of years.

This does depend on how it is being done: see

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php

I have frequently used Linux tools to repair and rewrite NTFS 
filesystems that were broken, with notable success. So I would say that 
Linux NTFS support is fairly solid.

FAT32 Linux support is very solid, OTOH.

However FAT32 is a dreadful filesystem: NTFS is a modern(ish) journaling 
filesystem and much more robust.

What I would not currently be very happy with is a situation where Linux 
is reading and writing regularly to the Windows system partition. The 
reason for this is that Microsoft make undocumented and unexpected 
changes to their system at sporadic and random times, for various 
reasons. These tend IME to impact the system partition, and have far 
less effect on a straight (unencrypted) real ('basic') NTFS data partition.

All I can really say is that what I do on dual boot is something like this:

I create 5 partitions:

1: Windows System/boot/with GRUB - formatted NTFS
2: Windows swap - FAT32
3: Linux - EXT3
4: Linux swap - SWAP
5: data - FAT 32

- with #5 the largest. Windows is installed first, then Linux.

I have not yet lost data on any of the many machines configured in this way.

However, it would in fact be better to have the NTFS system used instead 
of FAT32 for data as it is a better filesystem - I am not sure if it is 
yet as robust as FAT32 under Linux.

MeJ





-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug