Although Windows 2000 now supports FAT32, something Windows NT did not do, Windows 9x systems don’t natively support NTFS. This means that on systems that dual-boot Windows 9x and Windows 2000, the Windows 9x OS can’t see any NTFS volumes. In many dual-boot situations it is very useful for both operating systems to see all available volumes. There are two ways to approach the problem: revert from NTFS to FAT32 or install a third-party NTFS driver for Windows 9x.
Although Windows 2000 provides a utility to convert from FAT/FAT32 (hereafter referred to simply as FAT) volumes to NTFS, there is no corresponding utility to migrate from NTFS back to FAT. It is possible, although the conversion is somewhat cumbersome and time-consuming. If you don’t need the security or other benefits offered by NTFS (such as mounted volumes, encryption, recoverability, etc.), spending a little time to convert to FAT could be a solution for you. You might even see a minor improvement in performance, since NTFS imposes more overhead than FAT.
Converting from a FAT filesystem to NTFS requires that you completely back up the volume, format it as FAT, and restore the files. If the volume hosts only programs and data, it’s not such a chore. If the volume happens to contain Windows 2000, however, you’re in for a little more work. Before you perform the following, perform a test backup and restore of a few files to make sure that you can successfully restore the files—a backup set won’t do you any good if you can’t restore it.
Back up the NTFS volume to tape, CD-R, CD-RW, or other mass storage media. If you use the Windows 2000 Backup utility you can back up the volume data to a file, although you’ll need enough disk space on another volume to contain the data.
In Windows 2000, format the volume as FAT. To do so, right-click the drive in My Computer and choose Format. In the Format dialog, select FAT or FAT32 as desired for the filesystem.
Restore the files from the backup to the newly formatted volume.
Boot Windows 9x and verify that you can access the volume.
Have a bootable DOS or Windows 9x disk on hand that contains a copy of Fdisk.
In Windows 2000 Backup, update the ERD from the Welcome tab, and select the option to copy the registry to the repair folder.
Back up the NTFS volume using Windows 2000 Backup. Select the entire Windows 2000 NTFS volume and system state data. Select the option to verify the files after backup to ensure a good backup. You can back up the files to a network server if available, but bear in mind that the backup could consume several hundred megabytes of space.
Run Windows 2000 Setup again. Select the option to install a clean copy of Windows 2000 rather than upgrade.
After the system restarts to begin installation, Setup will ask if you want to repair the existing installation. Press Esc to indicate that you want to install rather than repair.
Setup will prompt for the location to install Windows 2000. Delete the existing partition and specify the unpartitioned space as the location. Direct Setup to format the volume using FAT. If Setup doesn’t allow you to delete the partition, boot the system using a DOS or Windows 9x boot disk that contains the Fdisk utility. Run fdisk and delete the NTFS partition (which will show up as a non-DOS partition). Create a primary DOS partition, then reboot. Run Setup again and install to the new partition, formatting it as FAT.
After installation, boot the new copy of Windows 2000. Open the Backup utility and restore the backup set created in step 2.
Reboot the system to incorporate application, security, and other settings from the restored installation.
There’s another approach to take if you don’t want to go through the hassle of a backup/reinstall/restore, or if you want to retain the benefits of the NTFS filesystem for Windows 2000. You can add a driver to Windows 9x that will enable it to access the NTFS volume.
You’ll find such a driver, called NTFS for Win98, at http://www.winternals.com. Winternals offers a demo version for download that provides read-only support of NTFS volumes in Windows 9x. The full version supports read/write access to NTFS volumes. One limitation of NTFS for Win98 is that it doesn’t support any of the security of NTFS, making all files accessible from Windows 9x regardless of the security settings in Windows 2000. The other limitation is that NTFS for Win98 doesn’t support Windows 2000’s Encrypting File System (EFS). Any files stored on the NTFS volume using EFS will not be accessible under Windows 9x.
Even with these limitations, NTFS for Win98 is a great way to gain access to your NTFS volumes from Windows 9x on a dual-boot system.
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