you’re installing Windows XP and you choose an amount less than 32 gigabytes, you have a choice of two formattingschemes for your Windows “hard drive.” FAT32 may sound unappetizing, but it will give you one very cool feature that the other available format (NT File System) doesn’t: the ability to drag files back and forth fromthe Windows side to the Mac side. (This works only when you’ve started up the computer in Mac OS X. When you’rein Windows, you’ll be able to see and open files on the Mac side of the hard drive, although you won’t be able to edit them where they are. At least not without a commercial program like MacDrive [www.macdrive.com].)
If you choose a partition size greater than 32 GB, or if you’re installing Windows Vista or Windows 7, then youmust use NTFS. It’s a more modern, flexible formatting scheme—it offers goodies like file-by-file access permissions,built-in file compression and encryption, journaling (a data-protection feature), and so on.
But on a Boot Camp Mac, NTFS has a drawback. When you’re running from the Mac side, you’ll be able to see what’s on the Windows partition, but you won’t be able to add, remove, or change any files