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Thread: Fat32 --> ntfs

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    Fat32 --> ntfs

    Just discovered one of my external HDDs is FAT32, I'd like to move this to NTFS, it currently has data on it - it's a 400GB drive with about 65GB spare. I could move the data to my other various drives, reformat, then move back, but moving around 300GB+ of data takes its time!

    I've found this link:
    http://www.ntfs.com/quest3.htm

    Which looks too good to be true - can anyone confirm it will work, and that data will not be lost? - I stress this is a filestore drive, it doesn't have an OS on it or anything.

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    Re: Fat32 --> ntfs

    I've done it to a few drives in the past and it worked without problem although the drive was quite badly fragmented after the process. As with any sort of drive/partition modification it's always advisable to backup everything or at least anything important/anything which you can't easily get hold of again.

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    Re: Fat32 --> ntfs

    if you are going to back it up first, you may as well just copy the data to another drive first, then reformat as NTFS and copy the data back. that's what i would do

    i'd also suggest you take the drive out of the external caddy and connect it directly to the pc internally as you will be able to copy a lot quicker via IDE or SATA cables than via USB. it would save hours of time. if that's a hassle, just start it copying early in the morning and leave it for a few hours and copy back later in the day after formatting, or leave it running overnight, that's what i usually do if i have to shift loads of data

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    Re: Fat32 --> ntfs

    Yeah it's very handy in practice but really you shouldn't do anything like that without having a backup (which hopefully you should have anyway) but yeah if you had to backup first it would be better to just reformat the drive as NTFS and copy stuff back. Also since the drive is very full I think the conversion would take a long time to complete anyway so copying back and forth might not be far off the time for conversion. Taking the drive out of the caddy is a very good suggestion unless you can use eSATA as USB gets dreadfully slow after a while and to copy that much would probably take days.

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    Re: Fat32 --> ntfs

    Kinda what I thought, I guess I should take advantage of the spare capacity I have and do it the long way - it will be safer and result in a better drive

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