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| Copyright ©
1998 Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell |
Last Updated
April 9, 1998, Version 1.01 Read-Only
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| Introduction |
FAT32 is a FAT32 file
system driver for Windows NT 4.0. Once installed, any FAT32 drives present on
your system will be fully accessible as native Windows NT volumes. This free
version provides read-only capabilities. A read/write version is for sale at
the Winternals Software web site.
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| Recommended FAT32 Configuration |
Do not convert your first
partition, or your NT boot partition (the one with \winnt on it), to FAT32 as
there is no support in Windows NT 4.0 for reading FAT32 drives during the boot
sequence.
For maximum compatibility in
dual boot systems, the recommended partition configuration is to maintain a FAT
partition as the first partition on the primary drive. This partition should
contain Windows 95/98 as well as Windows NT and should not be used to store
applications or data files. The rest of the primary disk and any other disks
should be formatted with FAT32. |
| Setting Up Your Partitions |
FAT32 for Windows NT
does not make it possible to format new FAT32 drives on your Windows NT system,
just view existing FAT32 drives. If you wish to benifit from the space
efficiency advantages FAT32 has over FAT16 drives and are setting up a new
computer, follow these steps. When you partition the drive create at least two partitions: one
for system files and one for data files. You may also choose to create two
partitions for system files: one for Windows 9x and one for Windows NT. Of
course, you may wish to create multiple data file partitions.
Install Windows 9x first,
placing its system files (the \WINDOWS directory) on the first partition (the
C:\ drive), which must be formatted as FAT16. Then format all the data drives
as FAT32 drives. Finally, install Windows NT on either the C:\ drive, or the
second system drive you created. The second system drive can be formatted as
NTFS or FAT16. After installing FAT32 for Windows NT the data drives
will be accessible (for read-only access) from Windows NT.
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| Compatibility |
FAT32 for Windows NT
is fully compatible with all major NT applications. However, with the read-only
version of FAT32 you may occasionally enounter an application that
fails to function properly because it is not able to execute from or maintain
files on a read-only drive. |
| Related Pages |
These are other utilities here
at Systems Internals related to dual booting:
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Download FAT32
(read-only) for Windows NT 4.0 (715KB)
Order
FAT32 (read/write) for Windows NT 4.0
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