Hard drive format for Windows 98

[Kyle]

I bought a new hard drive to back up my music files and also use on another computer that is Windows 98. I converted my original external hard drive (where my music files are now stored on a Windows XP macine) to NTFS from FAT32. The new hard drive is FAT32, and I'm thinking I want to keep that format because I don't think Win98 reads NTFS. Will that create any problems copying files between the two hard drives?

[tfec]

NTFS -> FAT32: no problem if files are not larger than 4 GByte. Securitysettings are not copied.
FAT32 -> NTFS: no problem

[dwc]

Kyle,

Copying files should not be an issue, but the FAT32 file system doesn't handle errors as well as ntfs does, so you may be more prone to drive errors. It's be best to get off 98 if you can and move to XP if the box can handle it.

It looks like Win98 scandisk has issues with large fat32 partitions, putting you at a max volume of 127 GB that can be fixed by scandisk. if you go bigger you can't use scandisk to recover.:

"The ScanDisk tool included with Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows 98 is a 16-bit program. Such programs have a single memory block maximum allocation size of 16 MB less 64 KB. Therefore, The Windows 95 or Windows 98 ScanDisk tool cannot process volumes using the FAT32 file system that have a FAT larger than 16 MB less 64 KB in size. A FAT entry on a volume using the FAT32 file system uses 4 bytes, so ScanDisk cannot process the FAT on a volume using the FAT32 file system that defines more than 4,177,920 clusters (including the two reserved clusters). Including the FATs themselves, this works out, at the maximum of 32 KB per cluster, to a volume size of 127.53 gigabytes (GB). "

see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006/en-us (limitations of fat32)

also see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154997/en-us (description thereof)

Regards,
Dan

[Kyle]

Kyle,

Copying files should not be an issue, but the FAT32 file system doesn't handle errors as well as ntfs does, so you may be more prone to drive errors. It's be best to get off 98 if you can and move to XP if the box can handle it.

I think the box could handle it. How would I go about it? I've never changed and OS before. With the new Windows coming out this year, I wonder if the software is cheaper now?

[radish]

You can get the XP Home Upgrade edition for around $100, the upgrade from 98 should be as straightforward as sticking the disc in and answering some questions. If you're feeling braver, take a backup, wipe the disk and do a clean install.