Tech Support > Microsoft Windows > Basics > changing file system
changing file system
Posted by Sreedhar on June 8th, 2008


Hi,

I've re-installed Windows XP on my laptop with four drives. Earlier, the
file system is FAT32. During re-install, I've formatted the system drive (C
to NTFS. All other drives are still FAT32.

How can I change the rest of the drives to NTFS without losing my files/data
on those drives.

Thank you.
--
Sreedhar

Posted by Don Schmidt on June 8th, 2008


Start
Help and Support

Search for

convert to ntfs

The easy instructions will come up.

Very easy; done it myself.


--
Don
Vancouver, USA


"Sreedhar" <Sreedhar@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7BDA8305-C3DC-4756-B02B-34945710150F@microsoft.com...


Posted by John John (MVP) on June 8th, 2008


Make sure the partitions are aligned to 4K boundaries or else you may
end up with 512 bytes clusters. http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

John

Sreedhar wrote:

Posted by Twayne on June 8th, 2008


And even though it's "safe" to your data, the wise use will still do a
backup before messing with anything that close to the OS. Stuff
happens.



Posted by Ken Blake, MVP on June 8th, 2008


On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 05:03:00 -0700, Sreedhar
<Sreedhar@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:


To convert to NTFS, you use the CONVERT command. But first read
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm because there's an issue regarding
cluster size that isn't obvious.

Also note that conversion is a big step, affecting everything on your
drive. When you take such a big step, no matter how unlikely, it is
always possible that something could go wrong. For that reason, it's
prudent to make sure you have a backup of anything you can't afford to
lose before beginning.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Posted by Ken Blake, MVP on June 8th, 2008


On Sun, 08 Jun 2008 07:56:25 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
<kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote:


By the way, given the need to make a backup before you do this, and
given that you don't need to convert the system drive, the easiest way
to do this might be to make a backup, then reformat the drive as NTFS,
and finally restore from the backup.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Posted by Sreedhar on June 8th, 2008


Hi,

Thanks everybody for the info. That will help.

--
Sreedhar


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