MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-270): Installing ...

2-6 Chapter 2 Installing Windows XP Professional
FAT and FAT32
FAT and FAT32 offer compatibility with other operating systems. You must format the
system partition with either FAT or FAT32 if you will dual boot Windows XP Professional
and another operating system that requires FAT or FAT32.
FAT and FAT32 do not offer many of the features (for example, file-level security) that
NTFS supports. Therefore, in most situations, you should format the hard disk with
NTFS. The only reason to use FAT or FAT32 is for dual booting with an older operating
system that does not support NTFS. If you are setting up a computer for dual booting,
you need to format the system partition that contains the older version of Windows
with FAT or FAT32. For example, if drive C is the system partition that holds Windows
98, you could format drive C as FAT or FAT32. You should then format the system partition
that will hold Windows XP as NTFS. Finally, for multiple booting to be successful,
the boot partition must be formatted using a file system that all installed operating systems
can access. For example, if you are dual-booting between Windows XP and Windows
95, the boot partition (as well as the system partition on which Windows 95 is
installed) would have to be formatted with FAT.
Converting a FAT or FAT32 Volume to NTFS
Windows XP Professional provides the Convert command for converting a partition to
NTFS without reformatting the partition and losing all the information on the partition.
To use the Convert command, click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open text box,
and then click OK. This opens a command prompt, which you use to request the Convert
command. The following example shows how you might use switches with the
Convert command.
Convert volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity] [/X]
Table 2-2 lists the switches available in the Convert command and describes their functions.
Table 2-2 Convert Command Switches
Switch Function Required
Volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), volume
mount point, or volume name that you want to convert
Yes
/FS:NTFS Specifies converting the volume to NTFS Yes
/V Runs the Convert command in verbose mode No
/CvtArea:filename Specifies a contiguous file in the root directory to be the
placeholder for NTFS system files
No
/NoSecurity Sets the security settings to make converted files and
directories accessible by everyone
No
/X Forces the volume to dismount first, if necessary, and all
open handles to the volume are then not valid
No