NTFS Drives

NTFS Drives are not Portable

Drives formatted as NTFS are not fully portable between computers running Windows Vista or higher. Only the computer that creates any folders and files on the drive can modify those same folders and files. For example, if you create file MyFile on an NTFS drive from computer A, then only apps running on computer A will be able modify MyFile. If you plug the drive into computer B, which is running Windows Vista, and try to modify MyFile then you will see a message stating you do not have permission to write to the file. The file can only be modified from computer A, or a computer running Windows XP.

Marking an NTFS Drive as Shared

You can get around this problem by marking the NTFS drive as "shared". However, this is not a good idea because if you ever plug a shared drive into a networked computer anyone and everyone on that network will access to that drive. A shared drive is more vulnerable to malware infections and any sensitive, unencrypted files on the drive will be exposed.

You can do that by right clicking on the drive in Windows Explorer and and selecting Sharing and Security from the pop-up menu. Go to the Sharing tab and mark the Share this folder on the network check box and the Allow network users to change my files check box. Good luck, you have been warned.

Converting from NTFS to FAT

A safer way to make an NTFS drive portable is to reformat it as a FAT drive. The FAT file system is older and less capable than NTFS, but it is portable between computers without having to mark the drive as shared. FAT is the file system used by nearly all USB drives. Converting from NTFS to FAT can be done as follows: