Although many systems administrators have embraced the advent of NTFS because of its security and capacity advantages over the FAT file system, some are put off because NTFS doesn't let them use DOS-bootable disks to access NTFS partitions. The DOS boot disk, along with a handful of DOS utilities, has been an essential part of most systems administrators' toolkits. Nervous about losing this ability to access NTFS drives to perform emergency repairs, some administrators have kept their system partitions FAT, potentially compromising security.

If...