New My Book FAT32 -- One Care advises to convert to NTFS -- can I do that on this Ex HD, and if I don't, what are my risks for later upgrade to a Vista system?
Current -- XP Home and need to back up 101 GB hard drive
Option 1 -- External NTFS drive -- it's full -- need to offload at least 20 GB -- currently I have 121 GB in "One Care back up" already on the system .....Erase and Overwrite current onecare backup? seems risky...
Option 2 -- External FAT32 drive -- My Book -- 1 TB new -- ...warning to not use FAT32 -- do I convert this to an NTFS? If so, I have no idea how to do that ...or -- do I keep as FAT32 and worry later when I upgrade to a Vista OS?
You can safely ignore the warning about conversion if you are backing up a single PC. However, NTFS is a more secure file system and should really be the file system of choice for a large drive such as the new 1 TB drive. If there is nothing on that drive right now, don't bother converting - format the drive and select NTFS as the file system.
There is no impact to you for a future OS upgrade to Vista or Windows 7 as NTFS is the file system of choice for those operating systems.
-steveMicrosoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare & Live Mesh Forum Moderator