Anybody know if I can change the format of a Fat32 drive to a NTFS drive, to makes things worse I have 40gb of data on the Fat32 drive I want to change, so I would prefer to do it without formatting.

silly 4gb limits of fat32

cheers

[quote author=“Godspeed”]Anybody know if I can change the format of a Fat32 drive to a NTFS drive, to makes things worse I have 40gb of data on the Fat32 drive I want to change, so I would prefer to do it without formatting.

silly 4gb limits of fat32

cheers

Its very easy.

Right click my computer and go to manage.
Under storage - disk management should allow you to go to NTFS from Fat32 without formatting.

Erik

just a side note, if you do the conversion, there is no point of return, u can’t reverse from NTFS to FAT32

{Without formatting} Good point.

Erik

You can also do this from the command line.

Where driveletter is C: in most cases…

Supposedly, Symantec’s Partition Magic 8.0 (formerly Powerquest) can convert NTFS back to FAT32; however, that’s generally not a good thing to do. You’re typically much better off doing a clean format and then copying data back. There are issues with going backwards from NTFS to FAT32. Also, if you’re going to do any type of conversion you want to make sure you have an exact backup/image of all of your data. Also, I don’t know if the process will work on the boot partition and still boot.

Thank you all for your help, stuck on the first option, I right click on my computer and bring up the drives (by the way the drive I am trying to convert is a usb drive, would this make a difference).

Also how do you put an image on a posted comment? do you click the image button and place a target to a location on the hard drive? (could someone please post an example is this is right). Just thought it would be easier graphically to show you where I was up to.

Groovy, I have no room to backup, this is my problem. I need to export a DVD from Premiere and the Image file is huge, no space for it to go but my external 160 bloody Fat32 hard drive….

I feel like I am taking a step back in time

thanks for tyour help guys, I hope I make sense

It shouldn’t make a difference whether it’s internal or external.

So, you’re stuck on the conversion part?

I would go with the command line method since it’s the easiest to do and most straightforward.

Since you’re going from FAT32 to NTFS (not on your boot disk) then you should be ok. I’ve never seen a FAT32 to NTFS conversion fail…unless your hard disk physically dies during the process…which is probably unlikely to happen.

Oh, and you can only have pictures in posts if you have your own server or free web space where you can load pictures. You can’t upload pictures directly to this site due to me not having enough resources to allow it. The only upload i do allow is your avatar.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]You can also do this from the command line.

Where driveletter is C: in most cases…

quote]

Groovy, this is what I get

Convert cannot run because volume is in use by another process. Convert may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (y/n)

shall I proceed?

[quote author=“Godspeed”][quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]You can also do this from the command line.

Where driveletter is C: in most cases…

quote]

Groovy, this is what I get

Convert cannot run because volume is in use by another process. Convert may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (y/n)

shall I proceed?

Are you in the middle of copying something to the drive?

Erik

I swear I was logged in!

You will get this kind of message if Windows Explorer is viewing the drive. If so, simply close Explorer and wait a few seconds. Also, if you have System Restore turned on it may be trying to create system files on the drive. In most cases, you don’t want System Restore enabled on removeable drives since it’s a waste of space and resources. System restore is typically only needed on your boot drive where your system files are. To turn it off on a particular drive, go to your System control panel and find the System Restore Tab. Select the drive and turn off the monitoring.

Also, you may want to quit as many non-essential tasks that are running. Holding down the shift key as you boot up (after you see the windows logo) should keep some stuff from loading.

So, I think you can proceed and it should be ok.

This drive is dirty and cannot be converted (what a fu$%ing insult). The conversion failed

That’s what happened :evil:

You may want to run a

to make sure the drive is ok. i should have mentioned this earlier. sorry. do this and see if there’s any problems fixed and then try converting again. If the volume needs to be unmounted you can also add a “/x”  to force it to be unmounted.

and this is why I love this forum…... worked perfectly, cheeeeeeers guys

p.s- my girlfriend has felt neglected since I got the TR, I told her about this forum today, now she thinks I’m a geek. She’ll get used to it