Can you backup NTFS files to a FAT32 external hard drive?

Answer 1

My Answer: NO, no, no, no, and yes. Ok, so here is the thing. FAT32 implies that the maximum disk size is 32 GB. But this limit is debatable, for most hard drives encoded in FAT 32 are fare larger than 32 GB. NOW WHAT IS CERTAIN is that you have create an single file in it's unopened, undeditable, unviewable stage larger than 4GB on a FAT 32 system. This means that one video, compressed as a .mov, .avi, .wmv, .mp4, etc, are all excluded from this hard drive if they are over 4 GB. I have heard that you can span the documents over infinite chucks of 4 GB, but you need software or you need to know what in the hell you are doing. This "slitting" is similar to combining 2 hard drives to create one big virtual hard drive. Original Answer from someone else: Yes, NTFS and FAT32 are data formats. The system does not care what format the data is stored in. So data on an NTFS drive is simply read off the drive and written to the target drive in the target drive's format.

Answer 2

You can do so, but you will lose file attributes/permissions directly associated with NTFS file systems. The data in the file itself will be preserved.