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Converting fat32 to NTFS

Discussion in 'Windows - Software discussion' started by w00ly, Dec 13, 2010.

  1. w00ly

    w00ly Regular member

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    Been trying to convert fat32 external drive to NTFS for a whole day now. The drive is full at 1TB and I have no room to on any of my other drives to backup and format...I need to be able to convert from one fat32 to NTFS without losing data.

    First I tried partition magic, which gave me "autoconv.exe not found". So i expanded that from the windows disc and partition magic now said "can't determine filesystem of drive H:".

    So I gave up on partition magic and tried Windows' built-in "convert" utility. Unfortunately it says "Convert does not support fat32 drives" (which is what I thought convert was made for...way to go Microsoft).

    So after that little slap in the face I decided to try Linux. I could have sworn gparted could convert one FS to another but apparently not. So I decided to have it simply resize the partition, create NTFS in free space, copy data and repeat. Unfortunately gparted took about 40 minutes and apparently stopped so i closed it.

    So my questions: how can I convert fat32 to ntfs without losing data and not using CONVERT, PM8, partition assistant, partition master or gparted?
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2010
  2. mistycat

    mistycat Active member

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  3. w00ly

    w00ly Regular member

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    When I tried EASEUS (partition master) it said "there was an error in converting, please check the drive for errors" (paraphrased). I did it's two built in checks and chkdsk and neither found any errors. Tried to convert again after checking and received the same message

    Trying O&O partition manager now, it doesn't look like it has a convert function but i'll see if I can delete some stuff, resize the partition down to half, convert free space to NTFS, copy remaining data over and resize the NTFS partition to full
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2010
  4. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    w00ly, what windows are you using? maybe problem is the drive is to full or problem with usb interface. is the enclosure a sealed unit or can you remove the hd & insert it into your pc as long as your motherboard has same interface as the hard drive has?
     
  5. w00ly

    w00ly Regular member

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    Windows XP. I cleared about a quarter of the stuff off the drive but the rest I want to keep. I also tried connecting it internally but that was a no-go as well. I figured out the initial issue with convert was because I'm using a strip-downed XP ("performance edition"), where I expanded the convert.ex_ from the windows disc i386 folder but didnt expand the related dll file.

    So after fixing that now it's saying
    Code:
    Determining disk space required for file system conversion...
    Total disk space:              976768002 KB
    Free space on volume:          283173248 KB
    Space required for conversion:  1376398 KB
    Converting file system
    Insufficient Memory
    Error converting file MACOSX~1.ISO.
    The file may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
    Error converting directory $RZXUSQZ.
    The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
    Error converting directory S-1-5-~1.
    The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
    Error converting directory $RECYCLE.BIN.
    The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
    Error converting directory BACKUP~1.
    The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
    The conversion failed.
    H: was not converted to NTFS
    Ran chkdsk /r with no errors found. Freed up space on both that drive and my C: drive, same error. :\
     
  6. scorpNZ

    scorpNZ Active member

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    move all data to other drives,delete & reformat,put data back,not what you want to hear i know sometimes longest way is quickest,other option is leave as is & buy a larger drive
     

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