anyone have a solution to changing my C drive from FAT32
to NTFS format. I have basically run out of room, and
believe that by changing from FAT32 to NTFS I will free up
some space...

Open Help and Support and search on 'convert to NTFS' (without the quotes.)

Rocky

"Don F" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cbd101c41020$a72e8c20$(E-Mail Removed)...
> anyone have a solution to changing my C drive from FAT32
> to NTFS format. I have basically run out of room, and
> believe that by changing from FAT32 to NTFS I will free up
> some space...

Don F wrote:
> anyone have a solution to changing my C drive from FAT32
> to NTFS format. I have basically run out of room, and
> believe that by changing from FAT32 to NTFS I will free up
> some space...

Well your beliefs are incorrect. If there's no room, there's going to be no
room for the drive to be converted. Solution? Purchase a bigger drive.
They're 50p a GB these days. I paid 40p a GB when I purchased a new 200GB.

Hi, Don.

Changing from FAT32 to NTFS is easy; just use the Convert.exe command,
following instructions in the Help and Support file. But it will not gain
you much - if any - extra space. The advantages of NTFS are in the area of
security, both in security from unauthorized access and in security from
file system glitches, not in space savings. NTFS might take more overhead
space on smaller HDs.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(E-Mail Removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP

"Don F" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cbd101c41020$a72e8c20$(E-Mail Removed)...
> anyone have a solution to changing my C drive from FAT32
> to NTFS format. I have basically run out of room, and
> believe that by changing from FAT32 to NTFS I will free up
> some space...

R. C. White wrote:

> Hi, Don.
>
> Changing from FAT32 to NTFS is easy; just use the Convert.exe command,
> following instructions in the Help and Support file. But it will not gain
> you much - if any - extra space. The advantages of NTFS are in the area of
> security, both in security from unauthorized access and in security from
> file system glitches, not in space savings. NTFS might take more overhead
> space on smaller HDs.
>
> RC
Hi..
Read with interest the query about changing FAT32 to NTFS. I did, to
some extent. But I did retain some applications that were initially
install using FAT32, when I tried using them on the NTFS side, the
application ran fine, did almost everything it was supposed to do,
except it would not save any of the work/file(s). I tried reloading,
upgrading, etc., nothing worked. What I had to do, read the fine print
on the application, set the right switches in the application options
and everything worked fine. I was using an older release of a genealogy
program (Generations). Lucky for me that the company had provided the
options.
So I suggest you read your current applications and ensure that they
will work with NTFS before you change.
greg

R. C. White wrote:

> Hi, Don.
>
> Changing from FAT32 to NTFS is easy; just use the Convert.exe command,
> following instructions in the Help and Support file. But it will not gain
> you much - if any - extra space. The advantages of NTFS are in the area of
> security, both in security from unauthorized access and in security from
> file system glitches, not in space savings. NTFS might take more overhead
> space on smaller HDs.
>
> RC
Hi..
Read with interest the query about changing FAT32 to NTFS. I did, to
some extent. But I did retain some applications that were initially
install using FAT32, when I tried using them on the NTFS side, the
application ran fine, did almost everything it was supposed to do,
except it would not save any of the work/file(s). I tried reloading,
upgrading, etc., nothing worked. What I had to do, read the fine print
on the application, set the right switches in the application options
and everything worked fine. I was using an older release of a genealogy
program (Generations). Lucky for me that the company had provided the
options.
So I suggest you read your current applications and ensure that they
will work with NTFS before you change.
greg

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 20:16:35 -0600, Gregory Hernandez
>R. C. White wrote:

>> Changing from FAT32 to NTFS is easy; just use the Convert.exe command

Too bad you can't go back, if it doesn't pan out. For the system
primary, that's a biggie, but for data volumes, you can copy data off,
reformat the volume as FAT32, copy data back.

>> following instructions in the Help and Support file. But it will not gain
>> you much - if any - extra space. The advantages of NTFS are in the area of
>> security, both in security from unauthorized access and in security from
>> file system glitches, not in space savings. NTFS might take more overhead
>> space on smaller HDs.

Yes, it's interesting that even the same file system can, in extreme
cases, give you the reverse mileage as to what you'd expect.

For example, let's say you have a 2G FAT16 volume that is mainly
filled with really big files - let's say, 4 files of 500M each. You
convert that to FAT32, so cluster size drops from 32k way down to 4k.
That saves up to 128k in cluster slack, but the larger FAT may consume
more than that. An extreme case, yes, but something to sanity-check
against if writing an in-place file system converter.

>Read with interest the query about changing FAT32 to NTFS. I did, to
>some extent. But I did retain some applications that were initially
>install using FAT32, when I tried using them on the NTFS side, the
>application ran fine, did almost everything it was supposed to do,
>except it would not save any of the work/file(s).

NTFS may block writes to the "C:\Program Files" subtree, which bites
several apps that store their app-specific data and settings within
their own subtree. This was common practice for accounting packages
in particular, but may also apply to saved games, etc.

>I was using an older release of a genealogy program (Generations).
>Lucky for me that the company had provided the options.

That's exactly the sort of app I had in mind. The logic is; the data
files are proprietary to the app, so why put them in a public space?
(The answer is; so they are included in data auto-backups, or more
generally; because a decent app should offer the user the choice).

Glad you have a decent app there :-)

>So I suggest you read your current applications and ensure that they
>will work with NTFS before you change.

Yes, it's not the worst possible result of moving to NTFS, but a bad
one nonetheless. You may be able to fix it by changing NTFS
permissions on the afflicted directories, if the app couldn't cope.



>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Who is General Failure and
why is he reading my disk?
>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -