ExFAT

I have Samsung SSD with exFAT file system.Can I use for Win10 download?

Vladimir said:

I really didn't understand what you mean?

Do you want to install Windows 10 on that SSD?

Yes, I want to install win10 on that SSD, My C drive is on another 500gb ssd but there is only about 175tgb unused on my C drive ssd. So, I want to install win 10 on the empty SSD.

If the drive is large enough you can install Windows 10 there but it must be formatted NTFS. Vista and later (including Windows 10) can only be installed on NTFS.

CountMike said:

Or GPT in case of UEFI Bios.

No, Windows can currently only be installed on a NTFS partition and the installation will offer to format it for you if it is not (or say you can't install).

GPT is the partition table type (vs MBR on older versions of Windows). This is not the same as the file system (NTFS, FAT, EXT4 etc) which is defined for each individual partition irrespective of the partition table type (although not in the same way).

You can't install Windows on a ExFAT partition (but you can use an ExFAT partition to run a VM if you wish).

You can download the ISO onto an ExFAT partition (as it will fit within the file system limits) but you can't install it on that partition without formatting it.

davew said:

I have Samsung SSD with exFAT file system.Can I use for Win10 download?

Vista and Win7 require NTFS, Win8 changed that requirement ... not sure what it means as far as exFat though.

I'd be interested in a test ... if you're willing.

Note that some features will not be available if it does install. I don't think Reparse points are supported in exFat, so you lose all of those legacy folder links that point to the real folder (Application Data points to AppData, My Documents points to Documents.....). I don't think Restore points will work either - anything that needs the System Volume Information folder will be lost (Shadow copies, etc) - not sure on that though.

You could always slice off some space from the SSD (30 GB should be enough to test Win10).

Just create the free space, don't put a file system on it - then install Win10 to that unallocated /raw space.

The only caveat I can think of it how is the system Reserve partition configured.
please post a screen shot of Disk Management.
See: How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management

Back up your data if there's anything you want to preserve in case of failure.

Thanks to all who replied to my thread. Problem now solved

Despite this thread is old, I can't resist to make a comment. Windows 10/11 can be installed on exFAT partition, but not directly. One must install Windows on NTFS partition first, then copy Windows files from NTFS partition to some other location, then format NTFS partition as exFAT and finally, copy Windows files back to exFAT partition. Details can be seen in this video: Install Windows 11 on exFAT partition - YouTube