Windows file system

Before formatting a volume or partition, consider the file system with which to format it. Windows 2000 and Windows XP support the NTFS file system, File Allocation Table (FAT), and FAT32. NTFS is the recommended file system forWindows 2000 and Windows XP because it supports several features that the other file systems do not, such as file and folder permissions, encryption, large volume support, and sparse file management. However, you must format the volume or partition as FAT if you plan to access files on that volume or partition from other operating systems, including MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98,Windows Millennium Edition, and Windows NT 4.0.

Choose NTFS only if you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP and you want to take advantage of NTFS features.

The following features are unique to NTFS:

• Compression
• Disk quotas
• Encryption
• Mount points
• Remote storage

In addition, NTFS is required on all dynamic disks and GUID partition table (GPT)disks.

For more information about installing multiple operating systems on a volume, see Installing more than one operating system on your computer.