Can I convert a FAT 32 XP to NTFS without loss?

[Guest]

Greetings,

I have hard drive C formatted to FAT 32 with Windows XP (Home)(service pack1)
and other file data all in one volume. Can I convert this hard drive to NTFS? Will
the resulting NTFS hard drive boot Windows XP without any loss of data or settings?

Will the command "convert C: /FS:NTFS accomplish this?
Will Norton Partitionmagic do the same job?

Thank You,
Bob

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Bob76,

Yes you can convert without the losing data, and the convert command you
listed is all you need. Details on converting, and what to watch out for:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

You can safely convert the partition to NTFS whenever desired,
without having to format the partition and reinstall everything. As
always when performing any serious changes, back up any important data
before proceeding, just in case. A little advance preparation is also
strongly recommended, so you can avoid any performance hits caused by
the default cluster size:

Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm


Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH

 

[Guest]

Thank you Rick and Bruce for your responses! I will carefully back up
on DVD's and study the info on the URL's you posted before I do the
job.

I have the Windows XP on my 40 gig main drive C as well as app's and
some data. I have a second 40 gig drive with more data and backups.
Both are formatted in FAT32. I recently obtained a 300 gig USB drive
for home video and picture storage. It was formatted in FAT32 by the
manufacturer. So, I thought I should go to NTFS formatting.

Again, thank you,

Bob

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have hard drive C formatted to FAT 32 with Windows XP (Home)(service pack1)
and other file data all in one volume. Can I convert this hard drive to NTFS? Will
the resulting NTFS hard drive boot Windows XP without any loss of data or settings?

Will the command "convert C: /FS:NTFS accomplish this?

Yes but see www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm first, to avoid ending with
512 byte sectors

Will Norton Partitionmagic do the same job?

If you have it already it will certainly do the alignment: I would then
myself prefer to le the Convert command do the actual conversion

 

[Guest]

Thanks you all for your help! Another question has come to mind.
If I keep my internal drives as FAT32 (with XP on a FAT32 drive),
and I change my external 300 gig drive from the manufacturer's FAT
32 to NTFS, will the FAT32 XP allow me to transfer data back and forth
between these drives of different format?

Thank You,

Bob

 

[Tim Slattery]

Thanks you all for your help! Another question has come to mind.
If I keep my internal drives as FAT32 (with XP on a FAT32 drive),
and I change my external 300 gig drive from the manufacturer's FAT
32 to NTFS, will the FAT32 XP allow me to transfer data back and forth
between these drives of different format?

Of course. You can have any combination of NTFS and FAT partitions on
an XP system. You can even have partitions using different file
systems on the same physical disk.

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for your help! Right now I think I will
reformat my 300 gig external drive (that has no files
on it) to NTFS and get it organized and then decide
on when to convert the FAT32 drives.

Bob

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks you all for your help! Another question has come to mind.
If I keep my internal drives as FAT32 (with XP on a FAT32 drive),
and I change my external 300 gig drive from the manufacturer's FAT
32 to NTFS, will the FAT32 XP allow me to transfer data back and forth
between these drives of different format?

XP will work with any mix of FAT and NTFS partitions. Whether it is
installed on one or the other makes no difference; and files themselves
are not changed by being moved from one sort of storage to the other

 

[Guest]

Dear Rick, i read your answer from last year with special interest. can you
help me? i just posted the following -
hi, can an expert tell me how or if an external hard drive can be converted
from FAT32 to NTFS under Windows XP PRO+SP1,2? My XP box has a new Maxtor
3100 external drive attached which DiskDefrag shows to be FAT32 partitioned.
convert H: /FS:NTFS
in a cmd DOS window, gives the error message "invalid drive specification."
Is it possible to convert an external hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS? How?
Rich, Washington, DC, USA, (e-mail address removed)

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

Dear Rick, i read your answer from last year with special interest. can you
help me? i just posted the following -
hi, can an expert tell me how or if an external hard drive can be converted
from FAT32 to NTFS under Windows XP PRO+SP1,2? My XP box has a new Maxtor
3100 external drive attached which DiskDefrag shows to be FAT32 partitioned.
convert H: /FS:NTFS
in a cmd DOS window, gives the error message "invalid drive specification."
Is it possible to convert an external hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS? How?

Right-click the HDD in the Explorer, select Format and format it in
NTFS. All data on the disk will be erased during that process, so
create a backup at first.