Re: Useful Utility

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

--- Paul Breeze  wrote:

> Since the subject of NTFS, has come up on the list,
> are there any
> advantages to switching from FAT32 to NTFS? I use
> Windows 2000,
> primarily on FAT32 partitions and though I have
> sometimes thought of
> switching to NTFS, I never have for exactly the
> reason discussed here;
> being able to access the drives to reload the
> registry. Since this
> Avira utility offers that possibility I wonder
> whether I should switch,
> or stick with FAT32 so that I can use a DOS boot
> disk to fix things.
> Does anybody have any ideas or strong opinions about
> this?

*Strong* opinions ? No. But then, I'm no Windows
maven. I think the "headlines" are that NTFS is a
more robust file system, supposedly more resistant to
corruption or other such disasters. I made my W2K
boot partitions NTFS back when I began using W2K.
Certainly, there are the access issues you mention,
but what I found was that in actual practice, it did
not matter a whole lot when Windows got seriously
hosed. Fixing the Registry by hand is a task beyond
the ken of mere mortals. Fixing a damaged Windows by
most any other means was also a daunting proposition.
(In my opinion, the Win "Recovery Console" is a joke.)


The one exception I can think of is if the problem is
indeed the Registry, and you could cure it by simply
running ERDNT. *Then*, having that access can make
the difference. But this is not enough to make me
revert to using FAT-32 for the boot partitions, which
I suspect is going to be less efficient, and possibly
less stable.

I'll tell you what would be tremendously useful: if
there was some way to run ERDNT against *the other*
W2K boot partition, for repair purposes. (I've always
had two, one being a nominal "maintenance" partition,
although it is equipped with a lot of installed app.s
and utilities.) As they are both NTFS, this at least
assures you of having *file-level* access, for backup
or copying operations.

 Jordan