NTFS and FAT32 Inquirey

[High2Risk]

journy101:

i think the question you should be asking yourself isnt IF you should change format, but rather WHY you want to change it.. i only ask this because you stated you are unsure if you want to change for fear that you might want to change back later.

As a broad statement, NTFS partition is really only needed for extra security and other features that you are highly unlikely to use on a typical home system. also NTFS cannot be read by Windows OS lower than 2k.

i would leave it as a FAT system for no other reason than "whats the point?"

[Deadsane]

Ntfs is very usefull when you want to devide your HD space. Because with a NTFS partitionated disk, it's possible to enable disk quotas. Disk quotas: Set a limit to the space available for a certain user.

[Alphaflux]

im my experience, dealing with mutiple partitions and differen't file systems, it is better (if you can afford it) to just use 2 seperate hard drives one with linux one with whatever windows OS you want, linux and windows don't play well together, and whenever i have tried to get the 2 to co-exist on the same hardrive, there are conflicts, and information tends to get over written, and programs stop working, i have heard successful dual boot stories, but from what i have messed with its better just to use seperate hard drives, it cuts down on the chances of conflicts and data loss and provides a more stable enviroment for both OS's. NTFS is a great system for WINxp pro and Win2k, but i haven't had any experience trying to partition a drive for both NTFS and ext2/3

[High2Risk]

I have never had ANY trouble with a dual boot system of WinXP and RedHat.

i have tried this many times with the variation of FAT and NTFS as the windows partition, and there has never been any 'cross over' or conflicts.

however, IF you do use 2 seperate hard drives, there is a possibility that linux will automatically use the windows hard drive as swap space, makin it unbootable.... but if you unplug that hdd for the install of linux then it wont pick up the other OS and you wont be able to create a dual boot (lilo or grub) automatically.

all in all i prefer the single hdd dual boot, however, after all of what has been said.. there is no need to change your current windoze partition. so dont.