Jim Dixon

A: Windows 2000 gives you a choice between the NT File System and FAT32-two file systems that can handle multigigabyte drives efficiently. It also offers the old FAT16 system, which doesn't do well on drives bigger than a gigabyte.

The major issue is backward compatibility. NTFS is fine if you want to dual-boot between Win 2000 and an earlier version of NT, while FAT32 will work if you boot from Windows 98 or Windows 95B (but not the original Win 95). FAT16 will work with just about any operating system you can run on your hardware.

If you want to take advantage of Win 2000 features like file encryption and compression, you'll have to use NTFS. But an NTFS-formatted drive will probably be a bit slower than a FAT32 unit, because it must track disk usage in order to provide those extra features. For more information, see page 79 of the June issue of PC World.

- Lincoln Spector