Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chas who wrote (14433)	1/1/2004 4:01:21 PM
From: Jon Tara	Respond to of 14778

There is plenty of advantage to using NTFS. NTFS is, to a great deal "self healing" in the case of a power failure or accidental (or purposeful!) loss of power. I can't remember when I have lost files due to a power-off. (That is, since I have been using NTFS.) Only NTFS offers security attributes. I can't imagine, for example, using FAT32 on a server, because there is no way you can control file access amongst different users. On workstations, this may have less importance. Again, NTFS is used only on hard drives. CDs are NOT formatted using NTFS or FAT32, but using ISO9660 and variations thereof. One simply has nothing to do with the other. The circumstances you describe certainly are curious, and without knowing how this works inside I can certainly see why you would come to such a conclusion of cause and effect. I'm not sure where I suggested that you replace all of your disks to satisfy me. I simply offered a suggestion. No, I wouldn't replace all the disks were I having the same problem. I do think it is worth the exercise with one disk, because it might give you some insight into what is really going on. Certainly, the problem exists - but the problem exists FOR YOU. It doesn't exist for me. I have many old CDs that were produced on old systems using FAT32 and even FAT16 file systems on their hard drives, and I can still read them just fine on my current systems that using NTFS on their hard drives. This would suggest that the problem is not universal, but is unique to the way you (or your company?) are producing and using the CDs. If using FAT32 on your hard drives appears to solve the problem, and you see no reason to use NTFS, then, as you say, problem solved! There's nothing wrong with such a pragmatic solution. I've taken such an approach many times, myself. It isn't always worth the cost, time, and effort to find out WHY a solution works when it isn't making sense. You haven't found the real source of the problem, IMO, but it doesn't matter if it solves the problem. But please don't lead others astray. Your pragmatic solution may not be somebody else's, and you may lead others to unnecessarily forgo using NTFS on their hard drives in order to solve a problem that doesn't exist. (For them.)