Fat32 vs NTFS

[JCW]

I built a new system and somehow the new HD was formatted Fat32 and the D
drive is NTFS and was the C drive in the old system. Is there a way to
convert the new drive from Fat32 to NTFS without reformatting? Also, the D
drive is split into 2 partitions. 18 GB NTFS (healthy)
31 MB Active(healthy)
Can I delete the 31 MB partition and make the D drive one partition without
losing data? There is nothing on the 3MB partition. Thanks for any help...
JCW

[Ken Blake]

In , JCW wrote:

> I built a new system and somehow the new HD was formatted Fat32
and
> the D drive is NTFS and was the C drive in the old system. Is
there a
> way to convert the new drive from Fat32 to NTFS without
reformatting?


Yes. Use the Convert command. But there is a likely performance
issue if you convert. Read www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm for
information about this, and how to avoid the problem.



> Also, the D drive is split into 2 partitions. 18 GB NTFS
(healthy)
> 31 MB Active(healthy)
> Can I delete the 31 MB partition and make the D drive one
partition
> without losing data? There is nothing on the 3MB partition.
Thanks
> for any help... JCW


You can not do this with built-in Windows facilities. You need a
third-party utility to do this. Partition Magic is the best-known
such product, but there are other freeware/shareware
alternatives.

--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

[Dr. Harvie Wahl-Banghor]

Some time, on or about: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 09:26:49 -0700, "JCW"
> was criminally insane in my professional
opinion when they claimed the following balderdash:

>I built a new system and somehow the new HD was formatted Fat32 and the D
>drive is NTFS and was the C drive in the old system. Is there a way to
>convert the new drive from Fat32 to NTFS without reformatting? Also, the D
>drive is split into 2 partitions. 18 GB NTFS (healthy)

If you go into Help and Support and type in Convert FAT32 to NTFS, it
will give the information you seek. I have copied and pasted an
excerpt from it to help you, though:

Whether a partition is formatted with NTFS or converted using the
convert command, NTFS is the better choice of file system. For more
information about Convert.exe, after completing Setup, click Start,
click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER. In the command window, type
help convert and then press ENTER.

I urge everyone to query the help files as they (a lot of the times)
contain the information you need. Google and other search engines ar
also helpful.

> 31 MB Active(healthy)
>Can I delete the 31 MB partition and make the D drive one partition without
>losing data? There is nothing on the 3MB partition. Thanks for any help...
>JCW

You should probably use something like Partition Magic to help you
with this. I believe there are some freeware programs that may help
you but have you thought of this? Since most of the data on your D
drive is probably just that, data, you can temporarily transfer that
stuff onto your C drive, then wipe out the old partitions, make one
big partition, format it, then movee all of your data back onto the
second drive.