FAT32 to NTFS [Convert or Format] & other issues

I have a 80GB drive that currently has windows2000 installed on primary

drive C with partitions as such
C:\ 15GB
D:\ 15GB
E:\ 10GB
F:\ 20GB
G:\ 20GB
There is another 4.3GB drive
H:\ 2.1GB
I:\ 1.9GB

Currently all drives are under FAT32.
I want to convert the 80GB drive to NTFS ie: partitions C:\ to G:\ ,
and keep the 4.3 GB drive the same ie: FAT

?Q1? Should I convert it to NTFS using the convert command or format it as NTFS and re-install everything from scratch again...? cos I heard that issuing a convert without formatting it as NTFS slows down disk access... is this true?

?Q2? Once in NTFS mode will I be able to have triple boot
ie: Win2K on C:\ and XP on D:\ and RH7 Linux on E:\

?Q3? Since I intend to keep the 4.3GB under FAT will it be accessible under Win2K and XP


Thanks.

Let me answer what I can. The FAT to NTFS is one and one way. I assume you are aware of the benefits of NTFS over FAT. You will be able to access the FAT filesystem from the NTFS partition if done correctly.
...
As far as the triple boot goes I believe that would depend if you are currently able to boot of of the target FAT32 to NTFS drive.
...
If you currently are using SAMBA to access your WINDOWS data from Linux I do not see why this would stop.
...
If the machine was mine and I had the time I would ghost, format and re-install how you would like to machine to be.
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As for you the slow down in disk reads remember that an NTFS drive allow security down to the file level thus involving more permission check. This could be one factor that could lead to a percieved slow down in disk reads.
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These are only my own opinions. Please proceed with caution no matter which direction you go.

Thanks for the reply Victor.
I know that NTFS would be slower than FAT32 ..but I wanted to know if by doing a convert instead of a fresh format, would it get any slower?
Time is definately why Im considering a convert... coz it can be done faster.

As a newbie I would have to say I can't see the reason it would be any slower if you did the convert and not the full format. It technically and in theory shouldn't make a diffrence from my point of view. It may hold some little pieces of data from when it was FAT but nothing that would cause a performance decrease.

Cheers
Gordon.

Well I am a newbie but I have three OS functioning properly on my PC now. ( RH linux , windows XP and windowsdotnet server 2003.)

converting the from FAT32 to NTFS may introduce some bugs in future.(programmes crash, links not found etc )
while not spend some time and do things fresh and clean!

You do not only need to move from FAT32 to NTFS but also need to REPARTITION C:\ in order to make space for linux booting partitions.

What you need or need to do:

a) delete and repartion "C:/" as follows

b) two primary partitions for booting your linux stuff.
(i) a boot partition 300 MB "native linux file system".
(ii) a swap partition 400MB ( usually twice the size of your
RAM memory )

c) one primary partition capable of booting your windows OS
( about 7GB NTFS or the rest of "C:\" but make sure that partition's size DOES NOT exceed the number 1024 cylinder of your hard drive. if it does exceed windows might NOT boot properly.)

Note: use " C:\" to create all this partitions.

you can also use a third party software to help you create your partitions.
I used partition maggic to ease my work.

d) format " E:\" with "native linux file system".
You will mount it as your root directory when installing linux.
You can install linux on FAT32 but it won't function properly.

e) format all your remaining partitions with NTFS.

and yeap you are close to the end. Proceed in this order when installing.

f) install linux . (don't forget to creat you boot disk.)
g) install win2k . ( in your current C:\ )
h) install winXP . ( in D:\ )


You can always boot your linux with your boot disk or install
a third party software to enable you have a dual boot system
where you can choose which OS to boot when you start your PC
is switched on.
I used "BOOT maggic" installed in WinXP to enable dual boot on my PC.

wawooooooooooo everything is over!.

Please don't forget to backup your files before reading this
post

For more questions write to
webbmanager@hotmail.com

Good Luck.

300MB for boot?!?!?! You gunna have yourself 10 kernels in there?

But I digress. NTFS will be fine and dandy for NT, 2K and XP, but 9X and ME don't read NTFS, well ME is useless. But you say you only want 2k, xp and Linux.

Use that secondary lil' drive for something, like swap and boot. then you don't have to worry about all that jazz, and a secondary drive used for swap on a seprarate IDE controller (secondary instead of primary) speeds things up too. Make it the boot drive also, and use Grub to handle the rest.

NTFS for the XP and 2k and ext3 or RieserFS or whatever journaling file system you want for RH, make sure to recompile the RH kernel for NTFS read support, if you wanna wright to it you'll have to enable the NTFS Wright module, but it's buggy. It'll probobly be a good idea to make a Fat32 partition for some file storage that will be accessed AND written to by all 3 operating systems.