FAT32
In order to overcome the volume size limit of FAT16, while still allowing DOS real-mode code to handle the format without unnecessarily reducing the available conventional memory, Microsoft decided to implement a newer generation of FAT, known as FAT32, with cluster counts held in a 32-bit field, of which 28 bits are currently used.
In theory, this should support a total of approximately 268,435,456 (228) clusters, allowing for drive sizes in the range of 8 tebibytes with 32K clusters. On Windows 95/98, due to the version of Microsoft's ScanDisk utility included with these operating systems being a 16-bit application, the FAT structure is not allowed to grow beyond 4,177,920 (< 222) clusters, placing the volume limit at 127.53 gigabytes. A limitation in original versions of Windows 98/98SE's Fdisk causes it to incorrectly report disk sizes over 64GB. A corrected version is available from Microsoft. These limitations do not apply to Windows 2000/XP except during Setup, in which there is a 32GB limit. Windows ME support FAT32 file system without any limits.
FAT32 was introduced with Windows 95 OSR2, although reformatting was needed to use it, and DriveSpace 3 (the version that came with Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98) never supported it. Windows 98 introduced a utility to convert existing hard disks from FAT16 to FAT32 without loss of data. In the NT line, native support for FAT32 arrived in Windows 2000. Windows NT 4 supported FAT32 with free driver by Winternals company, later acquired by Microsoft.
Windows 2000 and Windows XP can read and write to FAT32 filesystems of any size, but the format program on these platforms can only create FAT32 filesystems up to 32 GiB. Third party utilities are available which can format larger FAT32 filesystems. Thompson and Thompson (2003) write that "Bizarrely, Microsoft states that this behavior is by design." A Microsoft knowledge base article indeed confirms the limitation and the "by design" statement, but gives no rationale or explanation. However, a Microsoft TechNet article states that the 32 GiB limit was an arbitrary limit imposed because many tasks on a very large FAT32 filesystem become slow and inefficient. Peter Norton's opinion is that "Microsoft has intentionally crippled the FAT32 file system."
The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GiB minus 1 Byte (232?1 bytes). For most users, this has become the most nagging limit of FAT32 as of 2007, since video capture and editing applications and some other software can easily exceed this limit. Most new Windows machines now ship with NTFS and thus avoid these problems, but those who run dual boot systems or who move external data drives between computers with different operating systems have little choice but to stick with FAT32, or to install the FUSE library (on Linux) together with the NTFS-3G application. (although between Windows and Linux it is possible to use ext2 or ext3 through the use of external drivers such as ext2 IFS).
NTFS
NTFS or New Technology File System[2] is the standard file system of Windows NT and its descendants Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista.
NTFS replaced Microsoft's previous FAT file system, used in MS-DOS and early versions of Windows. NTFS has several improvements over FAT such as improved support for metadata and the use of advanced data structures to improve performance, reliability, and disk space utilization plus additional extensions such as security access control lists and file system journaling. The exact specification is a trade secret, although (since NTFS v3.00) it can be licensed commercially from Microsoft through their Intellectual Property Licensing program.
NTFS v3.1 found in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista.
Features of NTFS can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS