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Convert FAT32 to NTFS

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Bill Ridgeway

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Jun 30, 2009, 5:53:35 AM6/30/09
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Is it considered safe to convert a FAT32 volume to NTFS (having first made a
backup, of course)?

Bill Ridgeway


Malke

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Jun 30, 2009, 6:47:50 AM6/30/09
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Bill Ridgeway wrote:

> Is it considered safe to convert a FAT32 volume to NTFS (having first made
> a backup, of course)?

Yes.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm - Converting FAT32 to NTFS by Alex
Nichol

Malke
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Singapore Computer Service

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Jun 30, 2009, 9:05:54 AM6/30/09
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Hello,

Very safe, but a backup is always good to have in case something goes wrong.

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"Bill Ridgeway" <in...@1001solutions.co.uk> wrote in message
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Shenan Stanley

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Jun 30, 2009, 9:28:12 AM6/30/09
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Bill Ridgeway wrote:
> Is it considered safe to convert a FAT32 volume to NTFS (having
> first made a backup, of course)?

Exactly what you said, reverse the first two words and change the question
mark to a period.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
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Bill Ridgeway

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Jun 30, 2009, 10:48:55 AM6/30/09
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"Shenan Stanley" <newsh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
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The consensus of opinion confirms my view that it IS safe to convert a FAT32
volume to NTFS. OK now that's been established now for the crunch question.
I converted my Garmin SatNav (mass storage device) in the expectation it
would increase the speed of operation - as it normally does. The outcome
was a SatNav which failed to boot up. I can only assume that the cause was
the conversion to NTFS - unless, by co-incidence, something else was in
play.

Is there something peculiar to mass storage devices that would cause this
problem?

Bill Ridgeway


Singapore Computer Service

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Jun 30, 2009, 11:10:43 AM6/30/09
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Hello,

The operating system that Garmin uses most likely does not read NTFS
formatted drives. This is the case with most portable devices. You will need
to move all data out, format to FAT32 and move the data back in.

By 'safe', we meant that the data would not get corrupted during the
conversion process and XP would still be able to boot up with a drive
converted to NTFS from FAT.

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"Bill Ridgeway" <in...@1001solutions.co.uk> wrote in message

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Bill Ridgeway

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Jun 30, 2009, 11:33:13 AM6/30/09
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Thanks very much everyone for resolving the query.

Bill Ridgeway

"Singapore Computer Service" <singaporecom...@bootstrike.com>
wrote in message news:u2Z4hUZ%23JHA...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

Bruce Chambers

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Jun 30, 2009, 9:15:11 PM6/30/09
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In most cases, yes.

You can safely convert your current hard drive to NTFS whenever
desired, without having to format the partition and reinstall
everything. As always when performing any serious changes, back up any
important data before proceeding, just in case. A little advance
preparation is also strongly recommended, so you can avoid any
performance hits caused by the default cluster size:

Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm


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Bruce Chambers

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Anteaus

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Jul 2, 2009, 11:04:02 AM7/2/09
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I've yet to have the conversion process go wrong. A powercut could be
serious, though. So don't try it whilst Thor is doing his hammer-workout!

By default, user-permissions will be added, which may have implications if
there are shared folders within userprofiles. If you don't want this to
happen, add the /nosecurity switch.

Shenan Stanley

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Jul 2, 2009, 11:27:49 AM7/2/09
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<snipped>

Anteaus wrote:
> I've yet to have the conversion process go wrong. A powercut could
> be serious, though. So don't try it whilst Thor is doing his
> hammer-workout!
>
> By default, user-permissions will be added, which may have
> implications if there are shared folders within userprofiles. If
> you don't want this to happen, add the /nosecurity switch.

In this case - it was not the conversion process that went awry - but
converting somehting that should not have been converted.

In other words - a poor decision due to lack of knowledge due to lack of
research. ;-)

Entire conversation:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware/browse_frm/thread/b31f5d95412f591/ff2895fb1347fb95

Relevant section below...

Bill Ridgeway wrote:
> The consensus of opinion confirms my view that it IS safe to


> convert a FAT32 volume to NTFS. OK now that's been established now
> for the crunch question. I converted my Garmin SatNav (mass storage
> device) in the expectation it would increase the speed of operation
> - as it normally does. The outcome was a SatNav which failed to
> boot up. I can only assume that the cause was the conversion to
> NTFS - unless, by co-incidence, something else was in play.
>
> Is there something peculiar to mass storage devices that would
> cause this problem?


So converting your third party device (like a Garmin) to NTFS is bad -
because it is unlikely said device is running an application that would be
able to read NTFS. ;-)

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