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Old 16th September 2009
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jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 7,977
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I'd try to stay away from anything too convoluted. Any time you add complexity, you add opportunities for data loss. Virtual machines can be difficult or cumbersome; for example, do you need to restructure OpenBSD before you can install XP on the same disk drive?

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The entire requirement, as I understand it, is to:

Back up some files that currently reside on OpenBSD.
Restore them on a soon-to-be-installed WXP system.

If the external NTFS drive cannot be freely reformmated and then later returned to NTFS, then that drive cannot be used as a transition tool.

If you are able to obtain a second drive, as you surmise might be possible, then I would format that drive as FAT32, back up the files-of-interest, and then install XP where OpenBSD used to be.

I would stay far away from growing / shrinking / converting. Of anything. At least until the data has been safely restored to the original drive in NTFS format. The risk of confusion, finger fumble, or other mistake are higher than that of a software bug, and the chance of a software bug with filesystem manipulation is greater than zero.

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There are other alternatives, too, that don't involve FAT32. Backing up to optical discs, for example. And for that, both OpenBSD and XP understand ISO 9660 and UDF, though they use different extensions -- Rock Ridge and Joliet, respectively.
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