Date: Dec 12, 2001
Category: Operating Systems
Author(s): Psychoholic

Different file systems can coexist on the same computer or even the same hard drive. When this is the case it is important to remember that the two disks, or partitions, do not "access" each other or communicate with each other in any way. There is no such thing as one file system being "compatible" with another file system. All reading and writing operations are handled by the operating system, NOT the file system. All a file system does is organize the data on the disk. In some cases, such as with NTFS, the file system may offer security, encryption, or other features. However the operating system is still responsible for interpreting the information stored on the partition or disk no matter what file system is used.

The two most commonly used file systems on desktops today are FAT32, and NTFS.

FAT32 can be natively accessed by the following operating systems:

• Windows 95B (OSR2, OSR2.1)
• Windows 95C (OSR2.5)
• Windows 98
• Windows 98SE
• Windows ME
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP

NTFS can be accessed by the following operating systems:

• Windows NT*
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP

*There are two versions of NTFS that are relevant when talking about NT, Windows 2000, and XP. These are NTFS 4.0 and NTFS 5.0. NTFS 4.0 is the version that shipped with NT 4.0. For NT 4.0 to be able to access NTFS 5.0 you must apply Service Pack 4 or greater. Even with the later Service Packs applied there are some features of NTFS 5.0 that NT 4.0 cannot utilize, such as Disk Quotas. This is because NT 4.0 itself, does not support these features. However you will have the capability to access the files. Both Windows 2000 and XP can access NTFS 4.0 and 5.0, with 5.0 being the native version of NTFS for both.

For more information regarding FAT and NTFS see the following FAQ’s:

FAT32 vs NTFS

How do I convert from FAT32 to NTFS?

So what we have found out, is that when it comes to compatibility it’s all boils down to the operating system. To help illustrate this point let’s imagine we are setting up a dual-boot configuration on a computer.

You have a single 40GB hard drive divided as follows, created in the following order:

• 10GB, Volume Label "Win98", formatted FAT32, Windows 98 is installed here
  
• 10GB, Volume Label "W2K" ,formatted NTFS, Windows 2000 is installed here
  
• 20GB, Volume Label "Data", formatted NTFS, You are placing confidential data on this partition

You also have the following:

• 3-1/2 inch floppy drive


• CD-RW

Now if you turn on this computer and start it using Windows 98 you will only see the drives that are formatted using the file systems that are natively supported by Windows 98. That would be the volume labelled “Win98”, the 3-1/2in. floppy drive, and the CD-RW. As far as Windows 98 is concerned the volumes “W2K” and “Data” do not even exist, so you will not even see them when using Explorer. This means that the “Win98” volume would be automatically given the drive letter c: by Windows 98, and the CD-RW would be assigned the drive letter d:.

As you might guess you will have no difficulty copying/moving files between any of the drives/partitions available to you. The only caveat you may run across would be with the CD-RW drive, in which case you need special software to wrote to it, but you would probably already know this if you have ever used a CD-RW drive.

If you need to access a NTFS partition through Windows 98 there are ways to accomplish this. SysInternals offers a free driver that will allow read access to NTFS partitions.

If you need full access through Windows 98 you can buy the full version of the driver through WinInternals for $49.

Now let’s reboot and start Windows 2000. By default Windows 2000 would assign the following letters to each volume on the hard drive.

• C: for "Win98"
• D: for "W2K"
• E: for "Data"

And these letters for the other drives:

• A: 3-1/2 inch floppy drive
  
• F: CD-RW
  

Windows 2000 supports the same file systems that Windows 98 does, but in addition to those it also supports NTFS. So now you will notice the volumes we labelled "W2K" and "Data" are now visible. Also remember since we made the "Win98" partition as the first on the disk it still shows up as c: even though we are using the operating system that resides on d:, which is Windows 2000. The automatic lettering will be assigned based on how you create the partitions.

Just like when you were running Windows 98 you can copy/move between any volume you see. If you copy a file from "Data" to the "Win98" volume you will not even notice they are using different file systems. Converting a file from one format to another is completely transparent to you, the user, as it’s all handled by the operating system itself. Remember though that if you have your tax return, for example, stored on "Data" and you copy it to the "Win98" volume, it will not have the security features that were available while it was stored on the NTFS volume as FAT32 does not support these extra file system features. The same holds true if you copy to the CD/RW or the floppy, as both of these storage devices cannot be formatted as NTFS. If you decide you want to copy your tax return back to the "Data" volume just like before all it takes is a simple "drag and drop". To copy files to the CD/RW drive you will still need special software just as with Windows 98, unless you are using Windows XP which has CD writing capabilities built into the operating system.

If you copy files between FAT and NTFS and security is a concern you will want to check the permissions tab to make sure you have the correct permissions enabled/disabled. What permissions will be set to upon copying/moving is entirely dependant upon whether you copy, move, and if it’s on the same partition/disk or a different partition/disk. Explaining NTFS permissions is really beyond the scope of the FAQ but if you are going to be using NTFS it would be wise to familiarize yourself with them. Make sure you have a full understanding of them before you begin changing permissions. It is possible to lock yourself out of a file or folder making access very difficult or even impossible in some cases. A good place to start would be the Microsoft Security Overview.

There are two other related misconceptions I see regarding file systems. One of these is that NTFS is not compatible with games or other software. This is not true, once again the issue isn’t truly file system compatibility. Compatibility issues are related to the operating system, with the exception of certain disk management software titles such as Diskeeper that interact directly with the file system itself.

Your normal software and games could not care less what file system they are being stored on. As long as it’s supported by the operating system you are using, there will be no problem. With NTFS, however, permissions can play a factor in whether a game runs correctly or not. If you don’t have access to a particular file that’s needed by the software, it’s not going to work. This is different than when a file is stored on FAT32, and is probably responsible for the mistaken belief that a game, or other software, must be compatible with NTFS. This is another good reason to familiarize yourself with the file and folder permissions in NTFS.

The other misconception I see is people who think that the same file system must be used on networked computers to gain access to files across the network. This thought, like the misconception above, is also not true. If a user on a Windows 98 computer wants to access a file or folder on an NTFS volume that resides on a Windows NT/2000/XP computer he can, provided the network is set up correctly and his account has the proper permissions on the Windows NT/2000/XP machine. The Windows 98 machine doesn’t really read the NTFS volume, in this case the Windows NT/2000/XP machine accesses the file for the Windows 98 machine.

For more information on networking Windows computers see the following FAQ:

Sharing Files/Printers between WinNT/Win2K and Win9x/ME

I will also mention that it is also possible to access other operating systems across a network as well. Properly configured you can access file systems that are native to other operating systems such as Linux and MacOS. Other operating systems sometimes require special software or drivers running at one point or the other but it encountering such cross platform networks is often a frequent occurrence. As a matter of fact you probably access Unix files on a daily basis with your Windows computer and you don’t even know it. Many of the various sites on the internet are Unix driven. The same can also be said for Linux users accessing files from a Windows web server.

File systems themselves can vary widely in benefits and features from one to the next, but as long as the operating system can read all the file systems you are using on that computer it is just as seamless as if they are all using the same format.

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