NTFS to FAT32 for a partitioned HD

[PipSqueak]

Hi

I just bought an external HD (those USB external case ones), hoping
that I can easily transfer my files among 3 of my home pcs only to
find out that my desktop which runs win98 doesn't support NTFS.

Can I partition my HD to make it 1 drive NTFS and the other FAT32? Do
I need to reformat my entire HD to do that? I have about 6ogb of files
in my external HD and want to retain them if possible when
partitioning.

 

[Tom Porterfield]

Hi

I just bought an external HD (those USB external case ones), hoping
that I can easily transfer my files among 3 of my home pcs only to
find out that my desktop which runs win98 doesn't support NTFS.

Can I partition my HD to make it 1 drive NTFS and the other FAT32? Do
I need to reformat my entire HD to do that? I have about 6ogb of files
in my external HD and want to retain them if possible when
partitioning.

You can partition the drive, one as NTFS and the other as FAT32. You
don't say how big the drive is. But if there is room, then I would
suggest a program that will resize the NTFS partition down to make free
space for a new FAT32 partition. That way you don't lose the files that
are on the drive, they stay in the NTFS partition during partition work.
After the FAT32 partition is created and formatted you can then add
files to that partition that need to be accessible to Windows 98.

Such programs that can resize partitions without data loss are Bootit NG
from www.bootitng.com and Partition Magic from www.powerquest.com.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP MCE
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Hi

I just bought an external HD (those USB external case ones), hoping
that I can easily transfer my files among 3 of my home pcs only to
find out that my desktop which runs win98 doesn't support NTFS.

Can I partition my HD to make it 1 drive NTFS and the other FAT32? Do
I need to reformat my entire HD to do that? I have about 6ogb of files
in my external HD and want to retain them if possible when
partitioning.

I don't necessarily advise it, but I did use Partition Magic 8 to convert an
NTFS partition into a FAT32 partition with no apparent problems. However,
the best way to get FAT32 partitions out of an NTFS partition is to
repartition the NTFS partition(s) using Microsoft-supplied tools. This will
require the destructive partitioning and formatting of the NTFS
partition(s), creating one or more new FAT32 partition(s) from the free
space which will result from deleting the NTFS partition(s).

By the way, the character -->"o" is a lower-case O, a character in almost
all Western alphabets, found to the left of the character "p", while the
character -->"0" is a Zero, an integral number, found next to the "9" on
Western keyboards (or the bottom-left of the key pad.)

 

[Frank]

That is strange, because most external drives come formatted
to FAT32. In any case just copy the files that you want to save
to a folder on your harddrive and then format the USB drive
to FAT and then copy your files back. A little time consuming
but it will save money for a third party program that may or may
not do the job.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just bought an external HD (those USB external case ones), hoping
that I can easily transfer my files among 3 of my home pcs only to
find out that my desktop which runs win98 doesn't support NTFS.

Can I partition my HD to make it 1 drive NTFS and the other FAT32? Do
I need to reformat my entire HD to do that? I have about 6ogb of files
in my external HD and want to retain them if possible when
partitioning.

You might be able to convert with Partition Magic version 8 - but
otherwise you have to delete the present partition and start over.
There is no need to do anything to the XP machine; just the external
drive: XP will work with any mix of NTFS and FAT. And XP will not make a
FAT 32 partition bigger than 32 GB though it will work with one made by
other means.

To start the disk over, What I would use is BootIT NG, from
http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional trial)

Download, to its own folder, extract from the zip, run the bootitng to
make a boot floppy.

Back up the data you have on that drive to somewhere else

Boot the floppy, Cancel Install, entering maintenance, then click on
Partition work.

On the left you should be able to find the USB connected disk - probably
HD1 (HD0 being your main internal one); select it and in the middle pane
highlight the partition, Click on Delete, then highlight the resulting
Free Space, click Create, specifying FAT 32, and then Format.

 

[J. S. Pack]

Hi

I just bought an external HD (those USB external case ones), hoping
that I can easily transfer my files among 3 of my home pcs only to
find out that my desktop which runs win98 doesn't support NTFS.

Can I partition my HD to make it 1 drive NTFS and the other FAT32? Do
I need to reformat my entire HD to do that? I have about 6ogb of files
in my external HD and want to retain them if possible when
partitioning.

Best just to upgrade your desktop from Win98 to XP. It will thank you for
it, too.