Wheres the NTFS?

StefanS wrote on 5/27/2005, 10:58 PM

G'day all
Just got me a 250gb external drive just like Spot said in his DVD for the media files for my XP box. Problem is, I believe that NTFS file sys is preferable to FAT32, which I find it defaulted to (thought it was plug n play). It's NTFS capable, so how do I convert it from FAT32 to NTFS?
Thanks in advance.
Stefan

Comments

kentwolf wrote on 5/27/2005, 11:13 PM

>>...I believe that NTFS file sys is preferable to FAT32

It is. Very much so.

>>...so how do I convert it from FAT32 to NTFS?

There's more than one way to do this.

a.) Get a disk utility such as Partition Magic or Acronis DIsk Director. If you use these, you can leave your data on the disk you are reformatting.

b.) The other way:

Be sure all data you want is off of the disk to be converted.

Right Click My Computer, Manage, Left Click Disk Management, Right Click on a Disk, Format.

...and there ya go.

Thank you.

Bob Greaves wrote on 5/28/2005, 2:49 AM

windows 2000 and xp both contain utilities that will convert a drive with data intact to ntfs. look in help.

MJPollard wrote on 5/28/2005, 10:09 AM

If there currently are no files on the drive, you can open a Command Prompt and simply reformat the drive:

FORMAT X: /FS:NTFS

which will re-format the drive with the NTFS file system. If there are files on the drive that you can't afford to lose, you can convert the drive, which will leave the files intact:

CONVERT X: /FS:NTFS

You may or may not need to reboot after this step. All of this assumes you're running Windows 2000 or XP, of course. :-)

(Note that "X:" should be replaced with the letter of your drive, of course.)

StefanS wrote on 5/28/2005, 8:40 PM

Done. Thanks for that.