Portable Hard Disk File System Choice

I want to set up new portable hard drive for both use with my main
W2K-Pro computer and my old laptop which runs W98SE. I am aware that
W98 does not support NTFS so I have always used FAT32 as my file system
despite its disadvantages.

Can a particular HD be partitioned so that some volumes use NTFS while
other volumes use FAT32?

What is the largest volume that can set up with FAT32?

What is the largest FAT32 volume that can be used with W2K-Pro?

What is the largest FAT32 volume that can be used with W98SE?

Thanks, in advance, and any advice, thoughts, etc.

henriJ <bedpost DeleteThis @attglobal.net> wrote:

>Can a particular HD be partitioned so that some volumes use NTFS while
>other volumes use FAT32?

Yes. You'll have to do that on your Win2K (or WinXP or later) machine,
since Win98 doesn't know anything about NTFS. But each partition is
independent of the others. You can use any mix of file systems.

>What is the largest volume that can set up with FAT32?

In theory, FAT32 can support partitions as large as 8 terabytes
(IIRC). But the file system doesn't scale terribly well, and beyond
30-40GB you'll be much better off using NTFS. Win2K and WinNT won't
create a FAT32 partition larger then 32GB. They will use a larger
partition that was created someplace else. I think that Win98 will
create FAT32 partitions as large as 128GB.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(DTS)
Slattery_T DeleteThis @bls.gov
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt