Help, Can't get back to FAT32 even with Partition Magic

[Charlie]

I decided to go the NTFS route because I wanted to do some home movies
without having to add files because of the 4G limitation in FAT32.

Unfortunately, this was a mistake. Performance on my P3 800 mhz and hard
drive is very poor as a result. I have Partition Magic 8 and I read that I
will be able to convert it back to FAT32. I tried this. PM rebooted, no
errors reported.

However, XP still reports the partition as NTFS. The slower performance
also is indicative of the NTFS.

Does anyone what has happened her? Is there a way to go back without
reformatting??

 

[Larc]

| I decided to go the NTFS route because I wanted to do some home movies
| without having to add files because of the 4G limitation in FAT32.
|
| Unfortunately, this was a mistake. Performance on my P3 800 mhz and hard
| drive is very poor as a result. I have Partition Magic 8 and I read that I
| will be able to convert it back to FAT32. I tried this. PM rebooted, no
| errors reported.
|
| However, XP still reports the partition as NTFS. The slower performance
| also is indicative of the NTFS.
|
| Does anyone what has happened her? Is there a way to go back without
| reformatting??

PM won't return to FAT32 if there are ANY compressed or encrypted NTFS files on
the drive (FAT32 can't deal with them). They must be uncompressed first. Going
back to FAT32 can be simple if it's done shortly after an NTFS conversion. But
once compressed files are rampant, there's a lot of time-consuming work to do
before you can revert.

I've done this once and wouldn't try it again. Unless you just have too much
stuff on your system, you might actually save time by reformatting and
installing everything clean.

First, you may want to try checking for something other than NTFS that may be
causing your slowdown. Are your NTFS clusters 4K? Something substantially less
can cause rapid fragmenting and slow things down. PM can cure that quickly.

Larc



§§§ - Please raise temperature of mail to reply by e-mail - §§§

 

[R. McCarty]

Visit Raxco.com - Download Perfect Disk 2000 Version 6.
(30-day fully functional trial). Read Documentation on Offline
and GUI defrags. Do both, then recheck the drive's performance.

 

[Michael Cecil]

PM won't return to FAT32 if there are ANY compressed or encrypted NTFS files on
the drive (FAT32 can't deal with them). They must be uncompressed first. Going
back to FAT32 can be simple if it's done shortly after an NTFS conversion. But
once compressed files are rampant, there's a lot of time-consuming work to do
before you can revert.

I've done this once and wouldn't try it again. Unless you just have too much
stuff on your system, you might actually save time by reformatting and
installing everything clean.

I find it a simple task. One command and a few moments of waiting for
compressed files to be uncompressed. Hardly warranting a reformat.

Just open a command prompt window and issue the command,
compact /u /s /a /i /f *.*

When it is done, you can use PM to do the conversion. (As always,
back up any crucial files before performing tasks like this.)