Reformatting Drive

[Guest]

Installed Windows XP Home over Windows ME. It was indicated that I should
change the partitioned D drive from FAT32 to NTFS to obtain a faster read.
After changing, the software program Giga Pocket will not operate. Is there
any way to reformat the D drive to FAT32. The options I am given only state
NTFS on the D drive while the options for the C drive give both.

 

[Menno Hershberger]

Installed Windows XP Home over Windows ME. It was indicated that I
should change the partitioned D drive from FAT32 to NTFS to obtain a
faster read. After changing, the software program Giga Pocket will not
operate. Is there any way to reformat the D drive to FAT32. The
options I am given only state NTFS on the D drive while the options
for the C drive give both.

Nope, you can't convert back to Fat32. Unless you're willing to give up
everything on drive D and start over. Then you could use a Win 98 or ME
startup disk and go in with FDISK and delete the partition, then create a
new partition again, and format it in Fat 32. Then the XP install will give
you the option of using the current file system. Do you still have ME on
drive C?

 

[Anna]

Nope, you can't convert back to Fat32. Unless you're willing to give up
everything on drive D and start over. Then you could use a Win 98 or ME
startup disk and go in with FDISK and delete the partition, then create a
new partition again, and format it in Fat 32. Then the XP install will
give
you the option of using the current file system. Do you still have ME on
drive C?

Mike:
Yes, you can convert your present NTFS file system to FAT32. You can't do
that using any internal XP application/utility, however, Partition Magic
will perform this conversion. There may be other third-party programs that
can also accomplish the conversion from NTFS to FAT32, but I'm not familiar
with them.

If you do decide to undertake the conversion, make sure you backup any and
all data that's important to you. The likelihood is that the conversion will
go without a hitch but this process is no trivial matter. The few times I've
used PM to convert from NTFS to FAT32 I haven't encountered any problems,
but one never knows...
Anna

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Installed Windows XP Home over Windows ME. It was indicated
that I
should change the partitioned D drive from FAT32 to NTFS to
obtain a
faster read. After changing, the software program Giga Pocket
will
not operate. Is there any way to reformat the D drive to FAT32.
The
options I am given only state NTFS on the D drive while the
options
for the C drive give both.

There's no way within Windows to go back. Short of reformatting
from scratch, and losing everything on the drive, the only way to
do what you want is to use a third-party program like Partition
Magic.

I'm not familiar with Giga Pocket. Are you sure that your problem
with it is NTFS? In general, application programs don't care what
file system you're using. If I were you, I'd check with tech
support at the company who makes Giga Pocket before deciding that
the problem is NTFS.

 

[Tim Slattery]

Installed Windows XP Home over Windows ME. It was indicated that I should
change the partitioned D drive from FAT32 to NTFS to obtain a faster read.
After changing, the software program Giga Pocket will not operate. Is there
any way to reformat the D drive to FAT32. The options I am given only state
NTFS on the D drive while the options for the C drive give both.

You'd have to use a third party program like Partition Magic
(www.symantec.com/partitionmagic) to go back.

Giga Pocket is Sony's video recording application? NTFS shouldn't
bother it, it shouldn't even know what the filing system is. And if
you're recording video, you're likely to be working with huge files.
That being the case, you're much better off with NTFS. FAT32 can't
handle files larger than 4GB.