Convert NTFS to FAT32??

[Steve N.]

In


Steve,
Thanks for posting this reply.
I would say Carey is probably 98% correct for the last year and we all
sometimes make mistakes in interrupting the OP's message.
I would also say Carey is probably 100% in never giving advice that would
harm a OP and cause loss of data. If posters in this newsgroup just want to
bash someone, I suggest they pay particular attention to Andrew E, his
advice is dangerous and much of it gets passed along without comment that it
is wrong.

Thanks Mike. Yes, we all make mistakes and it's nice when we can admit
to them. I might not agree entirely with your assessment but it doesn't
really matter. I've pretty much abandoned trying "correct" Carey anyway.
The only reason I ever resorted to bashing-like comments at all is
because he once said that he tends to pay more attention to negative
critcism and ignores the rest and I was trying to get his attention. I
agree he's gotten better over all. Definitely agree on Andrew E. but
once again there's not much point in trying to correct people who pay no
attention. I've learned my lesson and apologize.

Steve N.

 

[Steve N.]

In


Well it is a XP newsgroup and Carey is pretty focused on the newsgroup.
XP cannot convert NTFS to FAT 32.

Technically he is right as far as XP is concerned. It takes third party
software to convert NTFS to FAT 32 and many of you Carey bashers bash him
for suggesting retail versions over OEM. Why wouldn't you bash him for
suggesting paying for a third party application to do something XP can't do
when asked in a Windows XP newsgroup?

He has frequently recommend 3rd party solutions, even PM. I also
understand his reasons for recommending retail over OEM. I may not
always agree, but so what?

Also, I have tested the PM NTFS to FAT 32 converter and have about a 75 %
success in the process.

This confirms what I suspected. I wouldn't trust it either, at least not
on a system partition, which is why I recommended a second drive
formatted FAT32 instead.

If the hard drive is compromised with bad sectors, it is not likely to
complete favorably. This is one hard drive process I would not try without a
backup of important data that cannot be retrieved from other media.

Definitely back up. My philosophy has always been if it's not backed up
then it's not worth saving in the first place.

Steve N.

 

[Steve N.]

Steve

Are you describing resizing a partition to leave free space, which is then
formatted?
Yes.

This is not converting one format to another!

I know. It was suggested as an alternative.

Still it will help the other person do what they want to achieve, which in
my view
is the measure of a helpful response.

Thank you.

Steve N.

 

[Steve N.]

Yves was correct. He did say "not accounting for the DOS versions in
Windows 95, 98 and ME", which was easy to understand that newer dos
versions came with the newer MS OS's.

I know what he wrote, and "questioned" why he did not consider them.

Yes, 6.22 was the last official MS-DOS one could buy independently.

Agreed.

Steve N.

 

[Steve N.]

Once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS,
you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32.
You will need to reformat the drive or partition which
will erase all data, including programs and personal files,
on the partition. Third-party programs, such as
Partition Magic 8, have the so-called ability to
convert a NTFS partition back to FAT32. However,
there is no absolute guarantee the conversion process
will not ultimately result in file corruption or worse,
an unbootable drive.

I agree and I would definitely never trust such a process on a system
partition with the possible exception as an experiment on a
non-production machine. I'm not even sure I'd trust partition resizing
on a production machine's system drive.

A second drive formatted FAT32 would be a much better solution.

Steve N.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Michael

Accepted and appreciated.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Anna]

Once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS,
you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32.
You will need to reformat the drive or partition which
will erase all data, including programs and personal files,
on the partition. Third-party programs, such as
Partition Magic 8, have the so-called ability to
convert a NTFS partition back to FAT32. However,
there is no absolute guarantee the conversion process
will not ultimately result in file corruption or worse,
an unbootable drive.

Carey:
Setting aside the desirability of converting an XP NTFS file system to a
FAT32 file system based on the OP's need, let me just relate our (limited)
experience with this conversion process.

Using Partition Magic 8, we've performed about a half-dozen of these
conversions, one or two of which was for our own experimentation purposes.
All the systems that were converted (going on about two years or so now)
are, to the best of our knowledge, functioning without problems.

In those "substantive" conversion cases, the need for conversion arose in a
strange way. The customers' (about three as I recall) systems were using a
custom-made program specifically designed for their businesses. The program
had been designed in pre-XP days and had (has) never been upgraded, the
developer having been long gone. When they upgraded their systems from Win98
to XP, all sorts of problems arose in a way that made their program
dysfunctional. Since the program in question basically met their needs, they
desired to retain the program if at all possible.

Through sheer accident, we traced the problems to the NTFS file system.
Following the conversion process to FAT32, the problems disappeared. To this
day (AFAIK) we're unable to determine the precise cause of the problems
relating to this or that aspect of the NTFS file system.

This is not to say, of course, that a user should, for trivial purposes,
convert his or her NTFS file system to FAT32. But if the user has good &
sufficient reasons for wanting to do so, based on our (admittedly, limited)
experience, it's worth a try. With the understanding, of course, that this
is not a trivial process by any means and there is a real possibility for
data corruption with the user winding up with a dysfunctional system. So
it's vital that the user make a backup of his or her important/critical
files before undertaking this process, or better still, create a cloned copy
of the drive for safety's sake.
Anna

 

[Willard]

As an experiment I converted my Win2Kpro(FAT32) to (NTFS) using the
command prompt "convert", which was o.k...
Then I used Partition Magic 8.0 to convert Win2Kpro(NTFS) back to
(FAT32) o.k...

Thanks for all of the suggestions,
Willard

 

[Charlie Tame]

Anna, I am not 100% sure but I think I recall reading of at least one DOS
Database program that used it's own file locking system because DOS couldn't
do it with the FAT format. IIRC they experienced problems when running with
NTFS volumes for this reason. Perhaps you were seeing something like that?
From what I recall it sounded like their locking system prevented NTFS locks
and or vice versa resulting in files that couldn't later be unlocked.

Again I am not sure I read this right, it was quite some time ago, but it
does sound feasible.

Charlie

 

[Anna]

Anna, I am not 100% sure but I think I recall reading of at least one DOS
Database program that used it's own file locking system because DOS
couldn't do it with the FAT format. IIRC they experienced problems when
running with NTFS volumes for this reason. Perhaps you were seeing
something like that? From what I recall it sounded like their locking
system prevented NTFS locks and or vice versa resulting in files that
couldn't later be unlocked.

Again I am not sure I read this right, it was quite some time ago, but it
does sound feasible.

Charlie

Charlie:
You may very well be right and that might have been the root cause of their
problems. I really don't know. I only know that when we converted the OS
back to FAT32 the programs immediately became functional without any of
their former problems.
Anna