[Thinkpad] [T43] FAT32 to NTFS conversion on initial boot (was: T43)

[Aryeh Goretsky]

Hello,

It appears the Windows XP installation image loaded onto ThinkPad T43s begins
life with a FAT32 file system.  At some point during the customer setup phase,
it gets converted to NTFS via the %windir%\SYSTEM32\CONVERT.EXE program.

You might want to consider installing the Recovery Console onto disk volume C:.
This will give you an alternate operating system to select at boot up for
maintenance tasks.  It's command-line only and uses up about ~8MB of space on
the disk volume.  All you need to do to install it is type

   X:\i386\WINNT32.EXE /CMDCONS /UNATTEND

at the Start Menu (or a Command Prompt).  You will need to substitute "X:" for
the drive letter or path to the \i386 directory.  Here are a couple of useful
Microsoft Knowledge Base articles on the subject:

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP
   <http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307654>

How to add more power to Recovery Console by using Group Policy in Windows XP
   <http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310497>

Another thing you may wish to do is look at Bart's PE, a free utility for
creating a version of Microsoft Windows XP (or 2003 Server) which runs from a
CD or DVD.  Many programs can be scripted to run from it.  More information
available at the author's web site:

   <http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/>


Regards

Aryeh Goretsky


At 10:00 AM 10/9/2006, you wrote:

>Message: 2
>Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 21:16:06 +0700
>From: "Jeffrey Race" <jrace at attglobal.net>
>Subject: [Thinkpad] T43
>To: "Thinkpad Users Group" <thinkpad at stderr.org>
>Message-ID: <20061009141617.A68A56E00A0 at illuminati.stderr.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>Just turned on my new T43 and the first thing it converts FAT32 to 
>NTFS without
>asking permission! Why?   (This is a disaster for me since I can't access the
>drive with any of my utilities.)
>
>What to do?
>jeffrey race