NTFS To FAT ??

[TheMysterio]

hi guys

i wanted to convert one partiion on my HDD from Fat 32 to NTFS..Is it possible to convert it agiain to FAT32without reformatting the whole disk or without doing FDISK?

Regards
TheMysterio

[jtk]

Try Patition magic this will do the job.jtk

[Zone-MR]

If its your system disk from which you are booting windows, then generally you cannot convert back to FAT32 (although FAT->NTFS is fine). For all other drives partition magic should do the job just fine.

[TheMysterio]

actually i wanted to install win 2003 RC2 on the NTFS partition(D:\) ..and is it possible to convert that drive again back to FAT 32? dont mind if i need to reinstall the OS again on that drive

Thanks for ure replies

Regards

[belthazor]

Why not just start with w2k3 on an fat?
Then you can convert it to ntfs if you want.
I'm a little confused by your goal.

[TheMysterio]

hi source,

i can convert that ..but what i wanted to know is if atall i wanted that drive to be as FAT32 instead of NTFS..will it be possible to do so?

Thanks
TheMysterio

[Tomboy]

TheMysterio,

I can confirm that Partition Magic will allow you to convert from NTFS to FAT32. However, I have twice run into a snag while making this change. It comes from Windows 2000/XP file compression. If compression is present, Partition Magic aborts with a cryptic message about the data being "sparse". Anyway, there is a command line utility in Windows (compact) that allows you to uncompress the data. After doing that, Partition Magic works fine. Of course, you will lose the file/folder security attributes that NTFS provides during the conversion. One other possible problem is FAT32 doesn't support file sizes greated than 4GB. If you have any files larger than that you will likely screw them up.

Hope this helps.

Tomboy

[TheMysterio]

tomboy
does that means that i cannot convert back to FAT32 from NTFS by normal means? i actualyl dont have the Partition Magic to convert...so is there any other way other that FDISK?
thanks & regards

TheMysterio

[Stringent]

You should be able to convert to NTFS by the nomal means, via the command line in 2000/XP or whatever you are using. convert x:\ fs:ntfs I think the command is.

The safest way is to fully format the partition again to FAT32 rather than perform a conversion. I have had hicups in the past doing it with Partition Magic. Just my experiance.

[TheMysterio]

thanks Flanderz for your comments