format external hdd

[Joe]

Hey everyone,
I have an external 40GB USB Hard Driveformatted to NTFS
allready. I need to reformat it fat32, inorder to attach
it to an old Win98 workstation to transfer some folders
and files, but it does'nt read the NTFS formatted HDD .
How can I format this external Hard Drive to Fat32? Any
suggestions would be appreiciated. Many thanks.

Joe

 

[Rich Barry]

Joe, the last I heard once you formatted to NTFS there was no going back.
So, I would recommend
a Dos NTFS reader. It's free.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=DOS+NTFS+Reader

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

Joe, the last I heard once you formatted to NTFS there was no
going back.

Not quite true. Although Windows doesn't provide a way to do this
non-destructively, you can do so with a third-party program such
as Partition Magic.

And of course, even without a third-party program, you can always
back up what's on it, reformat, and reload the drive from the
backup. Since this is an external drive, presumably with just
data on it, that may be the best approach for him.

 

[doug s]

you could use powerquest partition magic 7.0 or higher
this i think was the cut for versions able to convert
an external drive from ntfs back to fat 32 or fat 16
HAVE A GREAT DAY

DOUG

 

[R. McCarty]

Plug it back into your main system. Copy the data to a
folder on your main hard drive. Use Disk Management
to format it to FAT32 and then restore it's data from
your other hard drive.
Yes, Partition Magic can convert NTFS to FAT32, but
you have to make sure no files/folders are compressed on
the NTFS partition.