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On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:02:50 +1300, Richard wrote:

> In which case the drive would most likly not be getting used to backup
> files from a windows 7 machine, and who the hell still has old windows
> machines anyway?

The only Micro$oft software in my house is a legacy Win98 box that's
spends most of its time over the last 5 years unplugged and sitting in a
corner doing nothing.

Microsoft Windows is unnecessary and a waste of money!


> last linux install I had was not having any problems reading and writing
> to NTFS, perhaps the others that you use need to progress with their
> default settings?

Why use NTFS when better file systems are available?


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"Filtering the Internet is like trying to boil the ocean"

In message <ia94da$1ge$>, Richard wrote:

> ... who the hell still has old windows machines anyway?

Everybody still running Windows XP. Which is still the majority of the
Windows installed base.

In message <ia8uin$onb$>, Richard wrote:

> ... but I am not reformatting a drive to test that.

Easy enough to do, isn’t it? Create a temporary holding file of whatever
size you like, and mount it as a loopback disk. Now you can format it to
your heart’s content, put files on it, take them off, whatever. And when
you’ve finished, dismount the volume and delete the file.

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:43:32 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

>> ... who the hell still has old windows machines anyway?
>
> Everybody still running Windows XP. Which is still the majority of the
> Windows installed base.

Incorrect. "Windows XP" is based on WinNT, not on MSDOS.


--
"Filtering the Internet is like trying to boil the ocean"

On 28/10/2010 1:37 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message<ia8uin$onb$>, Richard wrote:
>
>> ... but I am not reformatting a drive to test that.
>
> Easy enough to do, isn’t it? Create a temporary holding file of whatever
> size you like, and mount it as a loopback disk. Now you can format it to
> your heart’s content, put files on it, take them off, whatever. And when
> you’ve finished, dismount the volume and delete the file.

Its called a VHD in windows, and its still effort.

On 28/10/2010 1:30 a.m., Sweetpea wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:02:50 +1300, Richard wrote:
>
>> In which case the drive would most likly not be getting used to backup
>> files from a windows 7 machine, and who the hell still has old windows
>> machines anyway?
>
> The only Micro$oft software in my house is a legacy Win98 box that's
> spends most of its time over the last 5 years unplugged and sitting in a
> corner doing nothing.
>
> Microsoft Windows is unnecessary and a waste of money!

Good for you, but that differs to the majority of the worlds view on things.

>> last linux install I had was not having any problems reading and writing
>> to NTFS, perhaps the others that you use need to progress with their
>> default settings?
>
> Why use NTFS when better file systems are available?

What better file systems are there that will allow the OP to backup from
the windows 7 machine in question?

In message <iaaqmi$ek1$>, Richard wrote:

> On 28/10/2010 1:37 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> In message<ia8uin$onb$>, Richard wrote:
>>
>>> ... but I am not reformatting a drive to test that.
>>
>> Easy enough to do, isn’t it? Create a temporary holding file of whatever
>> size you like, and mount it as a loopback disk. Now you can format it to
>> your heart’s content, put files on it, take them off, whatever. And when
>> you’ve finished, dismount the volume and delete the file.
>
> Its called a VHD in windows, and its still effort.

I’m not surprised you think it’s too much effort: VHD is a format designed
for use by virtual machines, which is way overkill for what I was talking
about.

No, I was talking about a file which is just a simple collection of sectors,
just like a disk, and which Linux allows you to format and mount as a
filesystem volume, just like a disk. Just takes four commands:

* Use dd to create the file. It’s common to fill it with zeroes, but this is
not necessary.
* Use losetup to associate the file with a loopback device.
* Use mkfs to format the loopback device with your choice of filesystem
* Mount the filesystem for use.

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:32:38 +1300, Richard wrote:

>> Why use NTFS when better file systems are available?
>
> What better file systems are there that will allow the OP to backup from
> the windows 7 machine in question?

To be readable by multiple different operating systems?

FAT32 is the only one that MS Windows can write that is solidly readable
and writable by all modern operating systems.

This is a limitation of MS Windows and MS WindowsNT.


--
"Filtering the Internet is like trying to boil the ocean"

On Oct 29, 12:53*am, Sweetpea <Herit...@Sweetpea.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:32:38 +1300, Richard wrote:
> >> Why use NTFS when better file systems are available?
>
> > What better file systems are there that will allow the OP to backup from
> > the windows 7 machine in question?
>
> To be readable by multiple different operating systems?
>
> FAT32 is the only one that MS Windows can write that is solidly readable
> and writable by all modern operating systems.
>
> This is a limitation of MS Windows and MS WindowsNT.
>
> --
> "Filtering the Internet is like trying to boil the ocean"

Lol, your logic is faulty as always. Using the same logic it would be
equally valid to say:

FAT32 is the only one that Linux can write that is solidly readable
and writable by all modern operating systems.

This is a limitation of Linux.

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:25:08 -0700, Squiggle wrote:

> FAT32 is the only one that Linux can write that is solidly readable and
> writable by all modern operating systems.
>
> This is a limitation of Linux.

No, because the OSes causing this limitation are MS Windows and MS
WindowsNT.

After all, MacOS is BSD Unix under the hood. Linux can read and write
many many file system types. Ditto for variants of Unix.

MS Windows can only read FAT. MS WindowsNT can only read FAT and NTFS (ie
only Microsoft file systems). In this respect Microsoft is still not
playing nice with other players in the IT industry.


--
"Filtering the Internet is like trying to boil the ocean"