Moving HDD used in XP to Vista?

Someone has told me that Vista uses a slightly different file system,
compared with XP.

I have a 320GB hard disk full of data (movies, mp3 files, DVD image files
only) in my XP system. When I upgrade to Vista, can I simply connect the
hard disk, say, as an F: drive?

Or, must the hdd be partitioned and formatted under Vista in order for Vista
to properly recognize all the data? (this means I'd have to back up the data
before using the same hdd in a Vista machine).

KlausK wrote:
> Someone has told me that Vista uses a slightly different file system,
> compared with XP.
>
> I have a 320GB hard disk full of data (movies, mp3 files, DVD image files
> only) in my XP system. When I upgrade to Vista, can I simply connect the
> hard disk, say, as an F: drive?

Yep.

>
> Or, must the hdd be partitioned and formatted under Vista in order for Vista
> to properly recognize all the data? (this means I'd have to back up the data
> before using the same hdd in a Vista machine).
>
>

I have a dual boot system -- actually quadruple boot -- two XP Pros, one
Vista 32-bit, one Vista 64-bit. All four read and write from the same
data drives interchangably. It's just not an issue.

Maybe what "somebody" told you is that the new version of Microsoft
Office reads and writes in a new file format? That's true, but there's
free software to overcome the problem. Vista, though, doesn't care.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

"KlausK" <> wrote in message
news:47a7a26d$0$25045$...
> Someone has told me that Vista uses a slightly different file system,
> compared with XP.
>
> I have a 320GB hard disk full of data (movies, mp3 files, DVD image files
> only) in my XP system. When I upgrade to Vista, can I simply connect the
> hard disk, say, as an F: drive?
>
> Or, must the hdd be partitioned and formatted under Vista in order for
Vista
> to properly recognize all the data? (this means I'd have to back up the
data
> before using the same hdd in a Vista machine).
>
>

Just connect the drive...Vista will be able to read it.
both XP and Vista use NTFS