After you create the partition on which you will install Windows 2000, Setup allows you to select the file system with which to format the partition. As with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 supports the NTFS file system and the file allocation table (FAT) file system. New to Windows 2000 is support for the FAT32 file system.

NTFS

Use NTFS for partitions that require:

The new version of NTFS in Windows 2000 supports remote storage, dynamic volumes, and the mounting of volumes to folders. Windows 2000 and Windows NT are the only operating systems that can access data on a local hard disk that is formatted with NTFS.

FAT and FAT32

Normally, you would not format the partition where Windows 2000 resides with FAT or FAT32, unless you require a dual boot configuration with Windows 2000 and another operating system. FAT and FAT32 do not offer the security features that NTFS provides. If you require the features of NTFS, particularly file-level security, format the partition with NTFS.

Note   If you are using FAT or FAT32 partitions, the Setup program automatically formats partitions larger than 2 GB as FAT32.