File Management

[Guest]

I have added 300gb external hard drive that is NFTS files but internal hard
drive is FAT32 files. Can I change the NFTS files to FAT32? I would
appreciate any help there is. Tina.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Yes! Look for info the 'convert' utility.

 

[JefN]

Hi Yves -

The Convert utility is a one-way street. If, in a CMD prompt, you type
"convert /?" you'll see the description of the utility is "Convert FAT
volumes to NTFS" followed by the specific syntax.

There is no built-in capability to convert NTFS to FAT32. There are
3rd-party products that can accomplish this feat, such as Symantec's
Partition Magic.

Jef


| Yes! Look for info the 'convert' utility.
|
| | >I have added 300gb external hard drive that is NFTS files but internal
hard
| > drive is FAT32 files. Can I change the NFTS files to FAT32? I would
| > appreciate any help there is. Tina.
|
|

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have added 300gb external hard drive that is NFTS files but internal hard
drive is FAT32 files. Can I change the NFTS files to FAT32? I would
appreciate any help there is. Tina.

The only way to change a hard drive's file system from NTFS to FAT32
would be to format the hard drive, erasing everything on it in the
process. But why would you want to take such a giant step backwards?
FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression capabilities, no
fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space on volumes larger
than 8 Gb in size. WinXP can read FAT12 (the file system used on 3.5"
diskettes), FAT16, FAT32, CDFS (the file system used on most CDs), and
NTFS with equal facility. Further, the file system on any one
disk/partition or diskette has absolutely no affect upon the operating
system's ability to read other compatible file systems on other
disks/partitions.


--

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

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Yes! Look for info the 'convert' utility.

I think you answered this one a little too quickly, Yves. ;-}

One uses CONVERT.EXE to go from FAT32 to NTFS, but to go from NTFS to
FAT32, as the OP wants, one must use FORMAT.COM.


--

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

 

[Test User]

I have added 300gb external hard drive that is NFTS files but internal hard
drive is FAT32 files. Can I change the NFTS files to FAT32? I would
appreciate any help there is. Tina.

Unless you need to have a Win9x machine access the files on the large drive,
I'm not sure that there is a good reason to convert from NTFS to FAT. If
the machine is running XP, there will not be a problem accessing the NTFS
drive. The files, BTW, really don't care whether the disk format is NTFS
or FAT. Only the OS does.

To convert from NTFS to FAT32, you will need to re-format the drive, and you
may need to remove and recreate the partition first.

If you do need to re-partition, note that the XP utility can't create a
FAT32 partition larger than 40 gig or so; you'd need to boot from a win9x
diskette and use fdisk to create the larger FAT32 partition, and format it.

HTH
-pk

 

[LVTravel]

Tina, I don't know whether the other posters misread your post or if I am
not reading it correctly.

The file system that is on a drive is immaterial to the XP operating system.
You can have a FAT 32 drive and an NTFS drive on the same system and copy
and use the files interchangeably (with a 4 GB limit on FAT 32 files)
between the two drives. If this answers your main question, great otherwise
read the other posts.