On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 11:58, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 04:57, Brant Fitzsimmons wrote: > > > >I can't read any other implication into "Does Windows *automatically* > > >configure drives added that were previously used with other OSs?" I > > >repeat my original question: why should we care whether Windows does or > > >not? > > > > > > > > Why do I even have to explain this to a Mandrake contributor? I > > obviously offended you and I'm sorry. I repeat my original question: > > Did I do something wrong to be punished for my post? > > > > You know as well as I do that Linux is in competition with Windows. > > When a Windows user asks the question we should be able to answer it. > > That is unless Mandrake wants to sell Linux only to current Linux > > users. They don't need to be convinced. They're on the team. > > > > To answer your question: Because we are in the software business. In > > the OS business no less. We have customers that have Windows servers > > and workstations that must communicate with Linux. We have Linux users > > that see features in Windows that would be nice to have in Mandrake. We > > have Windows users that want to use Linux but don't because of features > > or apps that are available on Windows, but not on Linux. Some apps > > and features have substitutes in Linux, but like it or not, some don't. > > Linux and Mandrake do not live in a vacuum. > > I'm sorry, I just don't understand what you're saying at all. I have no > clue what your point is. This isn't intellectual posturing, I genuinely > have absolutely no idea what it is you're trying to say :). Anyway, to > answer the question - no, Windows doesn't. When you put a new hard disk > in a Windows system it just turns up as D:\ (or whatever the next free > letter is), unformatted. You can partition / format it from Explorer or > whatever.
Duh, reply to self because this was a silly reply - it's obviously not what the original question was. The answer is still no, though, for the simple reason stock Windows doesn't recognise drives formatted with anything other than its own formats, I don't think. It just ignores Linux partitions and Mac partitions. So if you put an ext3 or whatever formatted drive in a Windows system it just ignores it, more or less. If you put a drive formatted in a Windows FS - FAT32, NTFS, whatever - into a Windows system, it'll see it and make it accessible. -- adamw
