Backing up to NTFS & FAT 32 .Problems?

[Rushy]

My laptop has an 80GB HDD and a while back I bought a Buffalo 500GB drive to back up to and provide storage for the future.

However, I now realise I need to delete a load of stuff off the laptop to free it up so I bought a WD Elements 500GB from Currys for £45 ( Bargain!) with the intention of backing up the files on the Buffalo to the WD so I always have 2 copies.

The Buffalo came with set up software and options and I set the file system as NTFS which from memory was recommended . The WD has no software and no set up options and comes preset as FAT32.

Will there be any problems using 2 different systems and copying files from one drive to the other

 

[Buttso]

HI

there shouldnt be any problems copying from one system to another, Windows is happy with both

but the buffalo drive, is that a network drive (like a terastation) or a USB drive

cause if its a USB drive, you can open windows explorer, right click on the drive and use the format option from there....

 

[WiiMW]

If it were me I'd convert the FAT to NTFS ... that should preserve any files you have on there already

You can do it from the command line ... it would be something like

convert (drive letter /FS:NTFS

 

[Rushy]

HI

there shouldnt be any problems copying from one system to another, Windows is happy with both

but the buffalo drive, is that a network drive (like a terastation) or a USB drive

cause if its a USB drive, you can open windows explorer, right click on the drive and use the format option from there....

They are both USB 2.0 , but mains powered drives , not network.

If it were me I'd convert the FAT to NTFS ... that should preserve any files you have on there already

You can do it from the command line ... it would be something like

convert (drive letter /FS:NTFS

The WD Elements drive is FAT32 but there are no files on it at the moment. Strangely it came with no software , no proper manual just some warranty info. Maybe because of its budget price? Its proper plug and play and I was about to copy the files from the Buffalo ( about 40GB of pictures ) but I just noticed that it is NTFS and remembered that was the recommendation when I loaded the software for it.

 

[Snoopy]

NTFS is a journalled file system so it keeps a log of what is recently done - making it more resilient for recovery on hard crash or power failure.

 

[cookie]

it really doesn't matter much unless you intend transferring single files over 4GB, as FAT won't accept that.

on the other hand, if you see the light and buy a mac, they can read and write to FAT32, but only read NTFS.

like i said, it probably doesn't matter what format it's in, but i suggest you use one of your external drives for a proper system back up like Acronis though. it can rebuild a bolloxed windows partition in a few minutes + keep all your personal stuff backed up

probably cheaper elsewhere

 

[ILMV]

on the other hand, if you see the light and buy a mac, they can read and write to FAT32, but only read NTFS.

I disagree http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

 

[cookie]

I disagree http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

well, yes, but i was trying to keep it simple.

i'm guessing he doesn't actually have a mac

 

[ILMV]

Take that back!

Err, it was for your benefit (as I assume you have a Mac), I only learnt this last week, always crafty to be able to write to an NTFS disk.

I have owned a Mac Mini for roughly 3 weeks now, still learning the ropes myself

 

[Rushy]

on the other hand, if you see the light and buy a mac, they can read and write to FAT32, but only read NTFS.

I saw the light years ago and own an iMac from around 2000 but its pretty slow , only has about 256MB and 30GB HDD and is running something like OSX 10.1. Its not really been in use for the past 3 yrs since I bought the Dell Laptop. I can't justify the cost of a new Mac/Macbook ........if I could believe me I would

like i said, it probably doesn't matter what format it's in, but i suggest you use one of your external drives for a proper system back up like Acronis though. it can rebuild a bolloxed windows partition in a few minutes + keep all your personal stuff backed up

probably cheaper elsewhere

Thee plan is to use the 2 x 500GB to store just all my old/archived images and video on and then just keep all my docs/mail/i tunes & current years photos on the laptop so it will stay relatively 'empty'. I already have a Broadcom 80GB portable USB powered drive that I bought 2 yrs ago that will use to back up the actual laptop files.

Thanks guys.


Ian

 

[Rushy]

on the other hand, if you see the light and buy a mac, they can read and write to FAT32, but only read NTFS.

On a separate note is that why I dont seem to be able to copy some digital images I ahve from the Mac on to a pendrive and then use/view them on my PC laptop

 

[WiiMW]

It's about 15 year since I dabbled with MAC graphics (so I might be a little off the mark and probably way out of date) ... but one possibility for your problem is back then the MACgraphic files had "info forks" and "data forks" ... PCs don't have these so can't see these elements (so you copy files and appear to get nothing)

So it depends what format you are saving /copying etc.

For compatibility purposes we used to set up MAC volumes on Windows servers that could broadcast shares to either format ... a PC reading a MAC file on the Mac volume through a PC share would get all of the neccessary data.... (hi tech back then)
Modern MACs are probably very different ... but it might be related....

can the PC see the files ?
It just doesn't have the right icon (may just need an "extension")?
What specifically is the problem?

 

[Rushy]

It's about 15 year since I dabbled with MAC graphics (so I might be a little off the mark and probably way out of date) ... but one possibility for your problem is back then the MACgraphic files had "info forks" and "data forks" ... PCs don't have these so can't see these elements (so you copy files and appear to get nothing)

So it depends what format you are saving /copying etc.

For compatibility purposes we used to set up MAC volumes on Windows servers that could broadcast shares to either format ... a PC reading a MAC file on the Mac volume through a PC share would get all of the neccessary data.... (hi tech back then)
Modern MACs are probably very different ... but it might be related....

can the PC see the files ?
It just doesn't have the right icon (may just need an "extension")?
What specifically is the problem?

Its been a while since I tried it but from memory the file icons were visible but in some unrecognisable/unreadable format . Tried several attempts but didnt work .

I'll have to try it again to see exactly what happens.