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General discussion

FAT 32

Jun 26, 2007 7:02PM PDT

Hello - can you run Vista on FAT 32, or is it NTFS and nothing else? - Amos

Discussion is locked

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Good question, but ...
Jun 26, 2007 7:04PM PDT

why would you want to do it?

Kees

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FAT 32
Jun 27, 2007 2:57AM PDT

Hi Kees - because I have some valuable files on FAT 32 and even FAT , unconverted and dating back to 9xx. I have been running XP on FAT 32 with very few problems. But can you or can't you?
Bob - Now that I am on my own, without an army of IT people to run to if I get stuck, I want as few complications as possible. The Andrew File System is definitely out. A brother in law of mine, a university professor, has used it some time ago and as he told me then he almost threw his computer out the window because of aggravation. Besides, I have a PC, not a Mac. And what say you to the question I asked ?

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In short, no...
Jun 27, 2007 3:03AM PDT

Vista is designed to automatically check the partition and refuse to upgrade if it's not NTFS, and it doesn't give you the option to format the drive as FAT32 during a clean installation. While you'll read of some who have bypassed this requirement they usually ended up having problems accessing Windows and even their own files down the road. Thus, by advice would be to skip attempting it.

Don't forget that you can convert from FAT32 to NTFS under Windows XP. There is some risk involved so you should have a backup, but it's a relatively simple process explained here.

John

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(NT) John many thanks
Jun 27, 2007 5:44AM PDT
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Actually if you have a Mac...
Jun 26, 2007 11:17PM PDT

And run Vista on Parallels it's deep down inside running on AFS. Does that help?

Bob