NFTS and Fat32

[Mike]

My computer has (3) partitions all of which are FAT32. I would like to
use NTFS. Is it possible at this late date to change the format
without starting from scratch. I don't know if it makes any difference
but this is a home computer with no network and no other users but
myself. I have an 80 gb hard drive.

If this is possible, how would you do it...with XP or Partition
Magic????

Thanks, Mike

 

[Dr. Sysop]

Mike,

Get Partition Magic 8 it will do what you need to.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

You can safely convert your hard drive to NTFS whenever desired,
without having to format the partition and reinstall everything. As
always when performing any serious changes, back up any important data
before proceeding, just in case. A little advance preparation is also
strongly recommended, so you can avoid any performance hits caused by
the default cluster size:

Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm


Bruce Chambers

--
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having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Ken Blake]

In

My computer has (3) partitions all of which are FAT32. I would like to
use NTFS. Is it possible at this late date to change the format
without starting from scratch. I don't know if it makes any difference
but this is a home computer with no network and no other users but
myself. I have an 80 gb hard drive.

If this is possible, how would you do it...with XP or Partition
Magic????

Yes you can convert to NTFS. You do it with XP's Convert command.

But there are performance issues to be aware of. Read
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm first.

 

[Air Force Jayhawk]

My computer has (3) partitions all of which are FAT32. I would like to
use NTFS. Is it possible at this late date to change the format
without starting from scratch. I don't know if it makes any difference
but this is a home computer with no network and no other users but
myself. I have an 80 gb hard drive.

If this is possible, how would you do it...with XP or Partition
Magic????

Thanks, Mike

Something I learned and maybe others can confirm or explain.

I upgraded from 09SE and elected to convert to NTFS as well. The
result was rather than a single C:\ partition of 60 GB, I got two
partitions, one of which was only 7 MB in size. It appears though
that the master boot record or something like it was stored in the
tiny partition while the "normal" file structure was in the 59.993 GB
partition. Later, my XP began to flake out (I suspect the hard drive
was showing signs of failure) so I attempted to reinstall XP over
itself to fix the corrupted files. I was told there was enough space
while there clearly was. I am guessing that XP was looking on the
tiny section and was attempting to install itself there.

That said, it really got ugly. Next, I bought a replacement drive and
attempted to clone the old drive. Cloning c: => to the new drive went
OK...until I swapped drives and attempted to reboot.


"NTLDR not found"

crap...now what. Tried a million things, never could get it to work.
Finally just did a clean install after backing up what I could.

Bottom line...I suspect the fat32 => NTFS conversion was what screwed
my thanksgiving weekend.

Recommend you back up and do a clean install...if my suspicion is
confirmed,'

AFJ