Fat32/ntfs

[dabaerman]

upgraded my friends computer to XP Home from WIN98SE. it's fat32. the 13gig
hdd was replaced with an 80gig. I used the xp upgrade disk on the new drive.
it did ask for the win98 disk (I have the orig) and I went about setting up XP.
only I used NTFS, it is what I use, and now I can't access the files on the old
hdd. there is only one file I want (650mb) and I want to know if I can change
the fs on the old hdd to ntfs? actually that file may be larger than 700mb. it
will boot to windows with goth drives on board but locks up after I log on. that
keeps me from moving the file from one to the other. even if I burned the file
to a cd, would it copy to the new hdd?


Ron

[MONKEYMAN]

In theory putting the file on cd and writing it to the NTFS drive should do the trick.

[Aedan]

It doesn't matter what you've formatted the main drive with. Windows XP is always (unless you do some serious lobotomy) capable of reading both NTFS and FAT. This is especially important with USB keys and other flash memory devices, as they're usually formatted with FAT.

If you can't access the files on the old hard disk, then it's nothing to do with FAT. Does the drive show up in the disk management tool? Was there a bootloader on the old drive to work around "bios limits"?

[dabaerman]

no boot loader. no bios limits. both drives are on a Promise
100 PCI card as the secondary IDE on the mainboard is
NFG. the cd's are on the primary.
I have tried master/slave on IDE1 and then one each on
IDE1&2. the system just locks up after I log on but only
after I log on. both drives are recognized, alone as well as
in the other configs. can't get to thedisk msnsgement tool.
I will try to copy the file to cd later. I have some 80min
cdr media somewhere.


Ron

[dabaerman]

thing are ok now. had to delete the xp updates and duplicate apps from the
old drive. it is recognized as slave and all files are accessable.
thanks for advice/patience.

Ron