Check out Mark Russinovich's NT Internals: "Inside Encrypting File System" (parts 1 and 2, June 1999 and July 1999, respectively) and Zubair Ahmad's Web Exclusive: "Windows 2000 EFS" (http://www.win2000mag.com/articles, InstantDoc ID 7977). The Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit also provides information about this topic.



--­Sean Daily

Sean Daily 8/2/2000 10:19:15 AM

I enjoyed Sean Daily's "NTFS5 vs. FAT32" (April 2000), but it leaves me wanting more information! Specifically, the article mentions the Encryption File System's (EFS's) Encrypted Data Recovery Agents but doesn't discuss how to work with them. I want to ensure that if encryption keys or systems are lost or damaged, I can recover the encrypted data. Can you direct me to a reference for this information?

William J. Sackin 8/2/2000 10:18:49 AM

Any NTFS(x) v. Fat(xx) should include a discussion of performance. In general, Fat throughput performance roughly approaches double that of NTFS. Many home users with little security requirements would opt for Fat16 or Fat32, especially those needing fast disk performance, such as those doing video capture & video authoring. Having a recommended partition format table such as table 4 with no regard to performance issues is a disservice to all your readers who may/may not be Pro IT people managing Enterprise servers.

My 2 cents.

ike7/20/2000 6:11:28 PM

I HAD SIX MONTHS AGO A DUAL BOOT MACHINE WITH WIN95 AND NT4.0 WIN95 PRIMARY PART. FAT32 NT HAD NTFS AND A THIRD VOLUME OF FAT16. WHEN I WENT TO W2K. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BE HAPPY THAT I COULD LOOSE THAT FAT16 PARTION. BUT WHAT I HAVE FOUND IS THAT W2K. CAUSE CORRUPTION ON THE WIN95 FAT32 PART. AS LONG AS I DO NOT READ OR WRITE TO THIS PART. I HAVE BEEN FINE. WHAT SEEM TO HAPPEN IS W2K ONLY WRITES TO ON FAT AND I END UP WITH MISMATCHED FAT. SO NOW I HAVE A THIRD FAT32 PART. CREATED IN W2K. WICH IS WORKING FINE. ANY CLUES INTO WHY THIS HAPPENS.

michael 7/20/2000 6:12:30 AM

I read Sean Daily's "NTFS5 vs. FAT32" (April 2000) because I experienced some performance problems after I converted from FAT32 to NTFS (during a Windows 2000--­Win2K--­installation). The article addresses this topic, but I'm wondering what else I can do to improve performance. For example, would a clean install on top of the existing NTFS volume place the Master File Table (MFT) at the beginning of the volume?

Craig Huber 5/16/2000 11:59:45 AM

Your best bets are to use a disk defragmentation utility such as Executive Software's Diskeeper 5.0 (which is capable of defragmenting and, therefore, optimizing all aspects of the NTFS volume, including files, directories, and the MFT) or to back up the volume and reformat it as NTFS (e.g., during Win2K Setup or on another Windows NT or Win2K system). Unfortunately, simply installing Win2K over the existing NTFS volume won't reformat the volume or change the performance of the volume.

Sean Daily 5/16/2000 11:59:45 AM