Need to convert 'H' drive from NTFS to fat32

[Guest]

when i got my computer, the 'c' drive was ntfs and the 'h' drive was fat32.
recently my mother board and processor got fried (whatever that means) and
needed to be replaced. when i got the computer back the 'h' drive was ntfs
instead of fat32. now whenever i download anything i get a message that
there is no room and i need to clean the disk. i don't care how many times i
use 'disk cleanup' i still can't get any room. i also can't defrag the 'h'
drive. in case you need to know i have windows xp on a compaq presario.
please help me find a way to get the 'h' drive back to fat32 where it belongs.

 

[Brian A]

Out of curiosity, what is the H: drive?
How many drives are installed?
How many partitions are there?

Whether the drive is FAT32 or NTFS should have no bearing on downloading files and
space. Insufficient space is due to the volume/partition being filled up to
capacity, not the type of file system it has. As it goes, NTFS will utilize space
better than FAT32 due to cluster sizes.

To answer:
<quote>
recently my mother board and processor got fried (whatever that means)
</quote>

It means they were damaged and were no longer operable.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Kerry Brown]

You need to talk to whoever did the repair and get them to fix it. It sounds
like the H: drive may be the Compaq diagnostic/restore partition. It does
need to be FAT32 for it to work. There is no easy way to convert from FAT32
to NTFS. You need a 3rd party program to do this or you can backup the
partition, format it as FAT32, then restore the backup. The shop that did
the repairs should have done this.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I should have said:

There's no easy way to convert from NTFS to FAT32.

--
Kerry
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca/phpBB2/

You need to talk to whoever did the repair and get them to fix it. It
sounds like the H: drive may be the Compaq diagnostic/restore partition.
It does need to be FAT32 for it to work. There is no easy way to convert
from FAT32 to NTFS. You need a 3rd party program to do this or you can
backup the partition, format it as FAT32, then restore the backup. The
shop that did the repairs should have done this.

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

I agree with Kerry. You need to talk to the company/person how did this.
Normally when a motherboard "gets fried", unless you install the exact
motherboard you will more than likely have to reinstall windows. It
sounds like that maybe a parallel installation may have been installed
(i.e. another copy of Windows installed on the drive, on another
partition (drive h:\) This could explain you lack of drive space.

When you boot up the PC, is there a selection screen for you to chose
which operating system to boot up in? Not that it matter, because he/she
could have also changed the boot.ini file to hide this.

There is a utility called Diskpart that one can use to revert an NTFS
volume back to a FAT32 volume without data destruction or
repartitioning. However, I HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU DOING THIS. It
should be done by someone with familiarity of this utility, not by an
end user.

Keep us posted on the results.

Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

I should have said:

There's no easy way to convert from NTFS to FAT32.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I agree with Kerry. You need to talk to the company/person how did
this. Normally when a motherboard "gets fried", unless you install
the exact motherboard you will more than likely have to reinstall
windows. It sounds like that maybe a parallel installation may have
been installed (i.e. another copy of Windows installed on the drive,
on another partition (drive h:\) This could explain you lack of drive
space.
When you boot up the PC, is there a selection screen for you to chose
which operating system to boot up in? Not that it matter, because
he/she could have also changed the boot.ini file to hide this.

There is a utility called Diskpart that one can use to revert an NTFS
volume back to a FAT32 volume without data destruction or
repartitioning. However, I HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU DOING THIS. It
should be done by someone with familiarity of this utility, not by an
end user.

Diskpart cannot be used to non-destructively convert NTFS to FAT32. There
are 3rd party apps that do it but nothing built in to Windows.

 

[Anna]

I agree with Kerry. You need to talk to the company/person how did this.
Normally when a motherboard "gets fried", unless you install the exact
motherboard you will more than likely have to reinstall windows. It sounds
like that maybe a parallel installation may have been installed (i.e.
another copy of Windows installed on the drive, on another partition (drive
h:\) This could explain you lack of drive space.

When you boot up the PC, is there a selection screen for you to chose
which operating system to boot up in? Not that it matter, because he/she
could have also changed the boot.ini file to hide this.

There is a utility called Diskpart that one can use to revert an NTFS
volume back to a FAT32 volume without data destruction or repartitioning.
However, I HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU DOING THIS. It should be done by
someone with familiarity of this utility, not by an end user.

Keep us posted on the results.

Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

Michael:
I hope Cyndi now has enough information to achieve her objective, however I
wanted to query you about your comment re using the Diskpart command to (in
effect) convert a NTFS volume to a FAT32 volume non-destructively. The
Diskpart command has a number of uses as I'm sure you know, but I'm unaware
that it has that kind of capability. Could you elaborate on that or perhaps
point me to information concerning that capability?
Anna

 

[Kerry Brown]

Michael:
I hope Cyndi now has enough information to achieve her objective, however
I wanted to query you about your comment re using the Diskpart command to
(in effect) convert a NTFS volume to a FAT32 volume non-destructively. The
Diskpart command has a number of uses as I'm sure you know, but I'm
unaware that it has that kind of capability. Could you elaborate on that
or perhaps point me to information concerning that capability?
Anna

LOL, very diplomatically put.

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Kerry, I have performed this task numerous of times and have performed
it on the laptop that I am currently using now to type my rebuttal. I
can send you the directions if you like.

Michael D. Alligood

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Kerry and Anna; and everyone else. Please accept my apology for my
incorrect and inaccurate information. It has been a very long day. What
I was referring to concerning Diskpart was converting Dynamic to Basic
disk without reformatting/repartitioning... Thank you for your
correction concerning my... screw up! Thanks again.

Michael D. Alligood

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Anna, please see my apology post... I have having a momentary lapse of
reason. But the doctors say the meds should work soon!

Michael D. Alligood

 

[Anna]

Michael:
Would it be possible for you to post these directions?
Anna

Kerry, I have performed this task numerous of times and have performed it
on the laptop that I am currently using now to type my rebuttal. I can
send you the directions if you like.

Michael D. Alligood

 

[Kerry Brown]

Kerry and Anna; and everyone else. Please accept my apology for my
incorrect and inaccurate information. It has been a very long day.
What I was referring to concerning Diskpart was converting Dynamic to
Basic disk without reformatting/repartitioning... Thank you for your
correction concerning my... screw up! Thanks again.

No problem. We all make mistakes.