You are encouraged to make links to this article from your website and tell your friends
Here are some basic troubleshooting tips for new monitors:
1. The picture does not appear
* Check to make sure the signal cable is firmly connected in the socket.
* Check to see if the computer system’s power is ON
* Check that the Brightness Control is at the appropriate position, not at the minimum.
2. The Screen is not synchronized.
* Check to make sure the signal cable is firmly connected in the socket.
* Check that the output level matches the input level of your computer.
* Make sure that the signal timing of the computer system is within the specification of the monitor.
3. The position of the screen is not in the center.
* Adjust the H-Size, H-Phase or V-Size, V-Center controls.
* Check if the signal timing of the computer system is within the specification of the monitor.
4. The screen is too bright or too dark.
* Check if the Brightness or contrast control is at the appropriate position, not at the maximum or minimum.
* Check if the specified voltage is applied.
* Check if the signal timing of the computer system is within the specification of the monitor.
* Especially, check the horizontal frequency.
5. The screen is shaking.
* Move all objects that emit a magnetic field, such as a motor or transformer, away from the monitor.
* Check if the specified voltage is applied.
* Check if the signal timing of the computer system is within the specification of the monitor.
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Saturday 17 December 2011
How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP?
INTRODUCTION
This step-by-step article describes how to use the Windows XP Disk Management snap-in to configure a basic disk and prepare it for use. This article also describes how to create and delete partitions, and how to format volumes with the FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file systems.
MORE INFORMATION
Basic disks and volumes
Basic disk storage supports partition-oriented disks. A basic disk is a physical disk that contains primary partitions, extended partitions, or logical drives. Partitions and logical drives on basic disks are also known as basic volumes. You can create up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and one extended partition, that contain logical drives.
If you are running Windows XP Professional and one or more of the following operating systems on the same computer, you must use basic volumes, because these operating systems cannot access data that is stored on dynamic volumes:
* Windows XP Home Edition
* Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or earlier
* Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition(Me)
* Microsoft Windows 98
* Microsoft Windows 95
* MS-DOS
How to use Disk Management
To start Disk Management:
1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrator group.
2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view. To customize how you view your disks and volumes in the upper and lower panes of the window, point to Top or Bottom on the View menu, and then click the view that you want to use.
NOTE: Microsoft recommends that you create a full back up of your disk contents before you make any changes to your disks or volumes.
How to create a new partition or a new logical drive
To create a new partition or logical drive on a basic disk:
1. In the Disk Management window, complete one of the following procedures, and then continue to step 2:
o To create a new partition, right-click unallocated space on the basic disk where you want to create partition, and then click new partition.
o To create a new logical drive in an extended partition, right-click free space on an extended partition where you want to create the logical drive, and then click New Logical Drive.
2. In the New Partition Wizard, click Next.
3. Click the type of partition that you want to create (either Primary partition, Extended partition, or Logical drive), and then click Next.
4. Specify the size of the partition in the Partition size in MB box, and then click Next.
5. Decide whether to manually assign a drive letter, let the system automatically enumerate the drive, or do not assign a drive letter to the new partition or logical drive, and then click Next.
6. Specify the formatting options you want to use by using one of the following procedures:
o If you do not want to format the partition, click Do not format this partition, and then click Next.
o If you want to format the partition, click Format this partition with the following settings, and then complete the following procedure in the Format dialog box:
1. Type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.
2. Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. You can change the disk allocation unit size, and then specify whether to perform a quick Format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.
Click Next.
7. Confirm that the options that selected are correct, and then click Finish.
The new partition or logical drive is created and appears in the appropriate basic disk in the Disk Management window. If you chose to format the volume in step 6, the format process now starts.
How to format a basic volume
To format a partition, logical drive or basic volume:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to format (or reformat), in then click Format.
2. In the Format dialog box, type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.
3. Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. If you want, you can also change the disk allocation unit size, specify whether you want to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.
4. Click OK.
5. Click OK when you are prompted to format the volume. The format process starts.
How to view the properties of a basic volume
To view the properties of a partition or logical drive:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want, and then click Properties.
2. Click the appropriate tab to view the appropriate property.
How to delete a partition or a logical drive
To delete a partition or logical drive:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to delete, and then click Delete Partition or Delete Logical Drive.
2. Click Yes when you are prompted to delete a partition or logical drive. The partition or logical drive is deleted.
Important
o When you delete a partition or a logical drive, all the data on that partition or logical drive are deleted.
o You cannot delete the system partition, boot partition, or a partition that contains the active paging (swap) file.
o You cannot delete an extended partition unless the extended partition is empty. All logical drives in the extended partition must be deleted before you can delete the extended partition.
Troubleshooting
Disk Management displays status description in graphical view and under the Status column of list view to inform you of the current status of the disk or volume. Use these status descriptions to help you detect and troubleshoot disk and volume failures. The following is a partial list of disk and volume status descriptions:
o Online
This is the normal disk status when the disk is accessible and functioning correctly.
o Healthy
This is the normal volume status when the volume is accessible and functioning correctly.
o Unreadable
The disk is inaccessible because of possible hardware failure, corruption, or I/O errors.
To troubleshoot this issue, restart the computer or rescan the disk to try and return the disk to Online status. To rescan the disk, open Computer Management, and then click Disk Management. On the Action menu, click Rescan Disks. google.com, pub-8056491207757224, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
This step-by-step article describes how to use the Windows XP Disk Management snap-in to configure a basic disk and prepare it for use. This article also describes how to create and delete partitions, and how to format volumes with the FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file systems.
MORE INFORMATION
Basic disks and volumes
Basic disk storage supports partition-oriented disks. A basic disk is a physical disk that contains primary partitions, extended partitions, or logical drives. Partitions and logical drives on basic disks are also known as basic volumes. You can create up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and one extended partition, that contain logical drives.
If you are running Windows XP Professional and one or more of the following operating systems on the same computer, you must use basic volumes, because these operating systems cannot access data that is stored on dynamic volumes:
* Windows XP Home Edition
* Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or earlier
* Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition(Me)
* Microsoft Windows 98
* Microsoft Windows 95
* MS-DOS
How to use Disk Management
To start Disk Management:
1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrator group.
2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view. To customize how you view your disks and volumes in the upper and lower panes of the window, point to Top or Bottom on the View menu, and then click the view that you want to use.
NOTE: Microsoft recommends that you create a full back up of your disk contents before you make any changes to your disks or volumes.
How to create a new partition or a new logical drive
To create a new partition or logical drive on a basic disk:
1. In the Disk Management window, complete one of the following procedures, and then continue to step 2:
o To create a new partition, right-click unallocated space on the basic disk where you want to create partition, and then click new partition.
o To create a new logical drive in an extended partition, right-click free space on an extended partition where you want to create the logical drive, and then click New Logical Drive.
2. In the New Partition Wizard, click Next.
3. Click the type of partition that you want to create (either Primary partition, Extended partition, or Logical drive), and then click Next.
4. Specify the size of the partition in the Partition size in MB box, and then click Next.
5. Decide whether to manually assign a drive letter, let the system automatically enumerate the drive, or do not assign a drive letter to the new partition or logical drive, and then click Next.
6. Specify the formatting options you want to use by using one of the following procedures:
o If you do not want to format the partition, click Do not format this partition, and then click Next.
o If you want to format the partition, click Format this partition with the following settings, and then complete the following procedure in the Format dialog box:
1. Type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.
2. Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. You can change the disk allocation unit size, and then specify whether to perform a quick Format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.
Click Next.
7. Confirm that the options that selected are correct, and then click Finish.
The new partition or logical drive is created and appears in the appropriate basic disk in the Disk Management window. If you chose to format the volume in step 6, the format process now starts.
How to format a basic volume
To format a partition, logical drive or basic volume:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to format (or reformat), in then click Format.
2. In the Format dialog box, type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.
3. Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. If you want, you can also change the disk allocation unit size, specify whether you want to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.
4. Click OK.
5. Click OK when you are prompted to format the volume. The format process starts.
How to view the properties of a basic volume
To view the properties of a partition or logical drive:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want, and then click Properties.
2. Click the appropriate tab to view the appropriate property.
How to delete a partition or a logical drive
To delete a partition or logical drive:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to delete, and then click Delete Partition or Delete Logical Drive.
2. Click Yes when you are prompted to delete a partition or logical drive. The partition or logical drive is deleted.
Important
o When you delete a partition or a logical drive, all the data on that partition or logical drive are deleted.
o You cannot delete the system partition, boot partition, or a partition that contains the active paging (swap) file.
o You cannot delete an extended partition unless the extended partition is empty. All logical drives in the extended partition must be deleted before you can delete the extended partition.
Troubleshooting
Disk Management displays status description in graphical view and under the Status column of list view to inform you of the current status of the disk or volume. Use these status descriptions to help you detect and troubleshoot disk and volume failures. The following is a partial list of disk and volume status descriptions:
o Online
This is the normal disk status when the disk is accessible and functioning correctly.
o Healthy
This is the normal volume status when the volume is accessible and functioning correctly.
o Unreadable
The disk is inaccessible because of possible hardware failure, corruption, or I/O errors.
To troubleshoot this issue, restart the computer or rescan the disk to try and return the disk to Online status. To rescan the disk, open Computer Management, and then click Disk Management. On the Action menu, click Rescan Disks. google.com, pub-8056491207757224, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
What is partitioning? How to partition?
Partitioning
Partitioning is one of the necessary steps to prepare a drive for use. It is the process of defining a certain areas of the hard disk for the operating system to use as a volume. A volume is a section of the drive with a letter, like C: or D:. All hard drives must be partitioned, even if they will have only one partition called C:. A partition program writes a master partition boot sector to cylinder O, head O, sector 1. The data in this sector defines the start and end locations of each of the other partitions. It also indicates which of these partitions is active, or bootable, thus telling the computer where to look for the operating system. All systems can handle 24 partitions, either spread out on the same drive or many drives. This means that one can have up to 24 different hard drives, according to DOS. DOS can’t recognize more than 24 partitions, although some other OSes may. The limiting factor is simply the availability of letters. There are 26 letters, A: and B: are reserved for floppy drives, leaving 24 letters available. Although there are third party partitioning programs that boast added capabilities, DOS FDISK is the accepted program for partitioning. FDISK-Fix Disk sets up the partition in a way optimum for DOS, and allow more than one OS to operate on one system. FDISK only shows two DOS partitions, the primary partition and the extended partition. The extended partition is divided into logical DOS volumes, each being a separate partition. The minimum partition size is one megabyte, due to the fact that FDISK in DOS 4.0 or later create partitions based on numbers of MB. Partition size is usually limited to 2G. DOS versions earlier than 4.0 allow max partitions of 32MB. Using the Fat32 system under DOS 7 and Windows 95 OSR2, max partition size is kicked up to 2t, or 2,000G. While FDISK has no trouble recognizing FAT partitions, it will not recognize partitions once formatted with NTFS. If you wish to make changes to NTFS partitions, it may be easier to use Windows’ Disk Management tool. NTFS partitions do not delete in FDISK like FAT partitions would. A zero-fill of the drive may be needed to remove the NTFS partitions if FDISK is the only option. Note that this will erase all the data on the drive.
How To Partition
The first partition is your primary DOS partition. This is your C: drive and can’t be divided. This is also called the active partition. You can only have one active partition. The second partition is optional. It is called an extended partition. This is the space left over after the primary partition. Each extended partition must be labeled with a letter D: through Z:. In FDISK, there is one extended partition, with it being divided up into Logical DOS Drives which each have a drive letter. To start this, type “fdisk” at the A> prompt. If this doesn’t work, it is because your drive is not installed correctly. First you have to setup a primary DOS partition. Choose Option 1 (Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive). Choose Option 1 in the next menu. Now you can make your entire C: drive the primary partition or only a part of it. Many people just make the entire drive one partition just to stay simple. If you want to break from this norm, specify the amount of drive you want to partition in either megabytes or percentage of total drive. If you are using a percentage, be sure to follow the number by a “%” or the computer will think you’re talking MB’s. Next, you’ll need to make this partition active. Return to the main FDISK menu and choose Option 2 (Set Active Partition). Follow the prompts. If you’re going to create an extended partition, choose Option 1 again, but these time choose option 2 in the next menu (Create Extended DOS partition). Plug in the percentage of drive to partition for this one. Do not make this partition active. Only one can be active. After you create an extended partition, you will be given the Create Logical Drives option in the extended partition menu. Follow the onscreen instructions to assign drive letters to your partitions D: through Z:. Keep in mind that D: is often used for the CD-ROM. After all this is done, you can choose Option 4 (Display Partition Information) and check work.
Optional FDISK Functions
FDISK in DOS 5.0 or later is more powerful than most people know. There are several options available with the programs that are undocumented in the DOS manuals. The bad news is that these commands are unavailable with Windows 95. Instead, you will have to purchase a third party program such as Partition Magic. The most useful, in my opinion, is the “/MBR” parameter. This parameter tells FDISK to rewrite the Master Partition boot sector based on the partitions present on the drive, without damaging the partitions on the drive. This is very useful when recovering from a virus that infects the boot sector of the drive. Use it by typing “FDISK /MBR” at the A> prompt. To back up the partition table onto a floppy diskette, type “MIRROR /PARTN”. This uses the MIRROR program to copy the partition table into a file called PARTNSAV.FIL. This can then be stored on your system disk. To store this partition info, type “UNFORMAT /PARTN”.
Partitioning is one of the necessary steps to prepare a drive for use. It is the process of defining a certain areas of the hard disk for the operating system to use as a volume. A volume is a section of the drive with a letter, like C: or D:. All hard drives must be partitioned, even if they will have only one partition called C:. A partition program writes a master partition boot sector to cylinder O, head O, sector 1. The data in this sector defines the start and end locations of each of the other partitions. It also indicates which of these partitions is active, or bootable, thus telling the computer where to look for the operating system. All systems can handle 24 partitions, either spread out on the same drive or many drives. This means that one can have up to 24 different hard drives, according to DOS. DOS can’t recognize more than 24 partitions, although some other OSes may. The limiting factor is simply the availability of letters. There are 26 letters, A: and B: are reserved for floppy drives, leaving 24 letters available. Although there are third party partitioning programs that boast added capabilities, DOS FDISK is the accepted program for partitioning. FDISK-Fix Disk sets up the partition in a way optimum for DOS, and allow more than one OS to operate on one system. FDISK only shows two DOS partitions, the primary partition and the extended partition. The extended partition is divided into logical DOS volumes, each being a separate partition. The minimum partition size is one megabyte, due to the fact that FDISK in DOS 4.0 or later create partitions based on numbers of MB. Partition size is usually limited to 2G. DOS versions earlier than 4.0 allow max partitions of 32MB. Using the Fat32 system under DOS 7 and Windows 95 OSR2, max partition size is kicked up to 2t, or 2,000G. While FDISK has no trouble recognizing FAT partitions, it will not recognize partitions once formatted with NTFS. If you wish to make changes to NTFS partitions, it may be easier to use Windows’ Disk Management tool. NTFS partitions do not delete in FDISK like FAT partitions would. A zero-fill of the drive may be needed to remove the NTFS partitions if FDISK is the only option. Note that this will erase all the data on the drive.
How To Partition
The first partition is your primary DOS partition. This is your C: drive and can’t be divided. This is also called the active partition. You can only have one active partition. The second partition is optional. It is called an extended partition. This is the space left over after the primary partition. Each extended partition must be labeled with a letter D: through Z:. In FDISK, there is one extended partition, with it being divided up into Logical DOS Drives which each have a drive letter. To start this, type “fdisk” at the A> prompt. If this doesn’t work, it is because your drive is not installed correctly. First you have to setup a primary DOS partition. Choose Option 1 (Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive). Choose Option 1 in the next menu. Now you can make your entire C: drive the primary partition or only a part of it. Many people just make the entire drive one partition just to stay simple. If you want to break from this norm, specify the amount of drive you want to partition in either megabytes or percentage of total drive. If you are using a percentage, be sure to follow the number by a “%” or the computer will think you’re talking MB’s. Next, you’ll need to make this partition active. Return to the main FDISK menu and choose Option 2 (Set Active Partition). Follow the prompts. If you’re going to create an extended partition, choose Option 1 again, but these time choose option 2 in the next menu (Create Extended DOS partition). Plug in the percentage of drive to partition for this one. Do not make this partition active. Only one can be active. After you create an extended partition, you will be given the Create Logical Drives option in the extended partition menu. Follow the onscreen instructions to assign drive letters to your partitions D: through Z:. Keep in mind that D: is often used for the CD-ROM. After all this is done, you can choose Option 4 (Display Partition Information) and check work.
Optional FDISK Functions
FDISK in DOS 5.0 or later is more powerful than most people know. There are several options available with the programs that are undocumented in the DOS manuals. The bad news is that these commands are unavailable with Windows 95. Instead, you will have to purchase a third party program such as Partition Magic. The most useful, in my opinion, is the “/MBR” parameter. This parameter tells FDISK to rewrite the Master Partition boot sector based on the partitions present on the drive, without damaging the partitions on the drive. This is very useful when recovering from a virus that infects the boot sector of the drive. Use it by typing “FDISK /MBR” at the A> prompt. To back up the partition table onto a floppy diskette, type “MIRROR /PARTN”. This uses the MIRROR program to copy the partition table into a file called PARTNSAV.FIL. This can then be stored on your system disk. To store this partition info, type “UNFORMAT /PARTN”.
NTFS vs. FAT: Which is right for you?
To NTFS or not to NTFS-
that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one
isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP,
NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security
advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the
differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice.
There are essentailly three different file systems available in Windows
XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for
New Technology File System.
FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS-DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2-GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encrypton, or advanced security using access control lists.
FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation-many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32-most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn’t a problem if you’re running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to the other computers on your network-they don’t need to know (and generally don’t care) what your underlying file system is.
The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file-by-file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you’re doing an upgrade from previous version of Windows, you’ll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don’t worry. If you’re already upgraded to Windows XP and didn’t do the conversion then, it’s not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can’t easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that you’ll want to. The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you’ve booted a computer from floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you’d just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don’t think it’s necessary to desirable to create that initial FAT partition.
When to Use or FAT32
If you’re running more than one operating system on a single computer (see my earlier column Multibooting Made Easy), you will definitely need to format some of you volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume-any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.
Converting to NTFS
Although there are certainly third-party utilities that allow you to convert from FAT16 or FAT32 to NTFS (and may be cuter about it), you really don’t need any special tool to perform the conversion-the necessary program is included on your hard disk as part of the Windows XP installation. To use this utility to convert your D drive, for example:
1. Close all open applications. This process may require a reboot, so be prepared.
2. Click Start, click Run, and then type cmd, and press Enter.
3. In the command windows, type: Convert D:/FS:NTFS
4. Press Enter
That’s it. If there are open files on the volume being converted; you’ll have to reboot your system for the process to complete. And if this is a large drive that contains lots of files, the process could take a while to complete. I don’t recommend that you try to do anything else while the conversion is occurring.
FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS-DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2-GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encrypton, or advanced security using access control lists.
FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation-many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32-most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn’t a problem if you’re running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to the other computers on your network-they don’t need to know (and generally don’t care) what your underlying file system is.
The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file-by-file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you’re doing an upgrade from previous version of Windows, you’ll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don’t worry. If you’re already upgraded to Windows XP and didn’t do the conversion then, it’s not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can’t easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that you’ll want to. The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you’ve booted a computer from floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you’d just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don’t think it’s necessary to desirable to create that initial FAT partition.
When to Use or FAT32
If you’re running more than one operating system on a single computer (see my earlier column Multibooting Made Easy), you will definitely need to format some of you volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume-any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.
Converting to NTFS
Although there are certainly third-party utilities that allow you to convert from FAT16 or FAT32 to NTFS (and may be cuter about it), you really don’t need any special tool to perform the conversion-the necessary program is included on your hard disk as part of the Windows XP installation. To use this utility to convert your D drive, for example:
1. Close all open applications. This process may require a reboot, so be prepared.
2. Click Start, click Run, and then type cmd, and press Enter.
3. In the command windows, type: Convert D:/FS:NTFS
4. Press Enter
That’s it. If there are open files on the volume being converted; you’ll have to reboot your system for the process to complete. And if this is a large drive that contains lots of files, the process could take a while to complete. I don’t recommend that you try to do anything else while the conversion is occurring.
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