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| Thread ID: 48005 | 2004-08-11 12:25:00 | Partition Magic lost its spell | Supertrooper (2510) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 260596 | 2004-08-11 12:25:00 | Using Partition Magic 8.0 to try to convert an NTFS formatted drive to FAT32. The drive is 120 Gb, and has files on it. Partition magic goes thru all the formalities, reboots the PC, says it is converting the drive, finishes the task in about 10 seconds, reboots back to windows. Go back into Partition Magic or Windows Explorer and look at the drive and it still says that it's NTFS. Partition Magic doesn't give up any error messages at any stage, so I'm lost for an answer as to why it's not doing what it says it is. If the software is not going to do what it is supposed to, can someone recommend a simple way of converting this drive back to FAT32 without destroying the data on it. I'm have the choice of Win2kPro or XP Pro to use. Reason why I'm trying to convert it back to FAT32 is that I have a USB external drive case. It used to have an 80 Gb drive in it, with FAT32 and the PC it was connected to could see it no probs. When the drive was upgraded to the 120 Gb, the PC was unable to format it as FAT32 - it kept saying that the volume was too big. I tried formatting it on a later model PC, but the same error came up - volume too large. The only way I could format it was using NTFS, and with the drive mounted in the USB external case, Windows has an issue with it, off memory it said that the drive could not be loaded? or something to that effect (under Control Panel/System/Hardware). |
Supertrooper (2510) | ||
| 260597 | 2004-08-12 02:27:00 | Is that a "free" version of PM from a magazine cover CD? If it converted the disk in 10 seconds, I suspect it might be a teaser version. This is showing you what it will do if you buy the full version. :D 10 seconds to convert a 120GB disk? Not "very" likely. ]:) |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 260598 | 2004-08-12 03:42:00 | Sorry I can't help you with the Partition Magic but for your future reference.. The 32 Gig restriction for FAT32 is put there by Microsoft. If you want to format a drive (upto 132Gig), then you have to use a Win98 bootdisk with the correct version of fdisk. Explained by Microsoft here (support.microsoft.com) and you can download a bootdisk from Bootdisk.com (www.bootdisk.com) |
Pheonix (280) | ||
| 260599 | 2004-08-12 08:36:00 | What's wrong with NTFS and why do you need to convert? Are you trying to convert a whole 120Gb partition? Converting to Fat32 to get degraded performance and poorer integrity of data sounds like a very bad idea. Only way I could think of doing it, if you really still needed to would be to split the 120Gb drive up into 4 partitions, then convert them seperately. |
kiki (762) | ||
| 260600 | 2004-08-12 12:06:00 | I wasn't aware that you could go from NTFS to FAT32 without losing data - besides, FAT32 is useless on drives more than 8GB. | Growly (6) | ||
| 260601 | 2004-08-12 12:21:00 | No, it's the full version, registered and all. I know that 10 seconds to convert the disk is stupid, when I saw it do that I knew something was wrong. |
Supertrooper (2510) | ||
| 260602 | 2004-08-12 12:43:00 | There's nothing wrong with NTFS itself, I'd prefer to use it, but for some reason it's not associating with Windows correctly. Ok, we have a USB external drive case. It used to have an 80 Gb drive in it, formatted with FAT32. This worked perfectly. This drive was partitioned and formatted with Windows 2000 Pro. We upgraded to a 120 Gb drive. First of all I couldn't get Windows 2000 Pro to format it properly using FAT32. It reported the size of the drive incorrectly (or not at all) then told me after it had tried to format it that the "volume is too big" or words to that effect, I don't remember exactly at this point. So in a desperate attempt to get the drive operational and transfer the client's data, I formatted it with NTFS. This seemed to work without any real issues until I came to reinstall it in the USB external case. Now when I go into Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager it shows a yellow triangle next to "USB Mass Storage Device" and if I click on properties it says "This device cannot start [Code 10]". So I am presuming that for some reason Windows doesn't like the fact that it's NTFS - the previoud drive as mentioned using FAT32 was fine, hence why I was trying to convert this one back to FAT32. I know it's a worse scenario, but I need to get this external drive operational somehow. |
Supertrooper (2510) | ||
| 260603 | 2004-08-12 12:52:00 | > I wasn't aware that you could go from NTFS to FAT32 > without losing data - besides, FAT32 is useless on > drives more than 8GB. So are you suggesting I reconvert from FAT32 back to NTFS? If so then why? Using PM8 I have been able to convert a 120 Gig hard drive from NTFS to FAT32. This drive was partitioned into C: D: and E: C being 40 Gigs D being 60 Gigs and E being what is left over for my swap file. All partitions are now FAT32. This so I can boot off a CD with tools to do what I want. Most people on this forum are aware that I have two 120 Gig seagate hard drives. I use one as a backup for the other. NTFS is useful as you can have more security but this is my computer is it not? |
Elephant (599) | ||
| 260604 | 2004-08-12 12:53:00 | Ok - who wants to laugh and point first?? LOL I just solved my own problem . . . . I suddenly realised that I hadn't set the Master/Slave jumper on the drive, and the USB interface doesn't recognise a Slave Only configuration - if there is only one drive it has to be set as Master . Did that and it installed perfectly and no more yellow error flag . . . Thanks to everyone who had input on this . [Although it still doesn't answer the issue with PM - maybe I'll just avoid it] |
Supertrooper (2510) | ||
| 260605 | 2004-08-12 13:05:00 | > Ok - who wants to laugh and point first?? LOL Not me for sure. > I just solved my own problem.... The best way to solve them as far as I know. Nothing wrong with posting a question and getting a new slant on things. > I suddenly realised that I hadn't set the > Master/Slave jumper on the drive, and the USB > interface doesn't recognise a Slave Only > configuration - if there is only one drive it has to > be set as Master. OK > Did that and it installed perfectly and no more > yellow error flag... > > Thanks to everyone who had input on this. > > [Although it still doesn't answer the issue with PM - > maybe I'll just avoid it] Thanks for posting that your problem was resolved. |
Elephant (599) | ||
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