Forum Home
Press F1
 
Thread ID: 35970 2003-07-27 05:15:00 Convert NTFS to Fat32, without loss of OS or data PoWa (203) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
163177 2003-07-27 11:27:00 Ahem Billy :-) I did read your post did you read mine :-) I wasn't talking about partition magic I was talking about the convert command that is part of windows. I know you can change the file system with that but why download or pay for a program if you don't need to :D Odin (227)
163178 2003-07-27 23:55:00 Whatever you do.. Take heed of the warnings telling you to scandisk your drive and defrag it, coz a lot more CAN go wrong converting back to Fat32 from NTFS!

Ive run in to troubles once with it, and only managed to salvage my data using Knoppix, and then proceeded to format the partition instead.

I have however successfully converted NTFS 5 times without a worry at all, the only reason it stopped for me was because I hadnt run ScanDisk and PM threw a wobbly at it (Understandably.. I didnt listen!).

The OS will not care what FS its running off, but it may prompt to reboot at the end of the conversion after XP says something about finding new hardware and it cannot be used until you reboot etc.
I believe this is XP simply updating its records that you're now using FAT32 and not NTFS :-)

Go for it!
Chilling_Silently (228)
163179 2003-07-27 23:56:00 Quite simple Odin:

There is currently no other viable alternative, and PoWa wrote in his initial post that he already had PartitionMagic available, hence there was absolutely no need to look anywhere else for dubious solutions.

Why give somebody potentially erroneous advice (as I understand it, "Windows Convert" is a one way street) when the best solution is at their fingertips? Free is not always better, and although there are many free programs that equal or better commercial offerings, sometimes it is preferable to pay for reliability and support.

Especially when data integrity is at stake.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Billy T (70)
163180 2003-07-28 00:06:00 Agreed. Well said!

Dont forget a backup first though, Just in case ;-)
Chilling_Silently (228)
1 2