NTFS to FAT32

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wizrulz

GUNNING DOWN TEAMS
ajay1287 said:
How to convert drives in ntfs system to fat32 without loss of data.
i need it coz of LINUX

FAT32 is an older file system.NTFS is superior to FAT32 in almost every way.
Converting NTFS back to FAT32 should be considered a last resort in all cases.
Partition Magic allows you to convert an NTFS partition back to FAT32, but often conversions simply fail, or worse, destroy data.

First off, delete the partition that you wish to convert. This is done by going into Disk Management: right click "My Computer" -> Manage -> Disk Management, which is found under the Storage section. Right click the partition you wish to remove, and click "Delete Volume". This will erase the partition. Once you have done this, you must re-create the partition. This is done by right clicking on an unallocated region of a disk, and selecting "Create Partition". Then click "Create Logical Drive". Bear in mind that Windows cannot format a FAT32 partition that is any larger than 32GB. This is the case because FAT32 is terribly inefficient on volumes that are larger than 32GB: fragmentation becomes a serious problem.

To format this new volume, right click it, and choose Format. Again, if the volume you wish to format is larger than 32GB, FAT32 will not be one of the options available to you in the drop-down box. You will have to create multiple partitions if you want to format a large drive as FAT32.

TRY USING PARTITION MAGIC 8
 

Manshahia

Resident Fanatic
ajay1287 said:
How to convert drives in ntfs system to fat32 without loss of data.
i need it coz of LINUX

Which OS r u using.
Guess u cant access ur NTFS partitions in Linux.
 

ApoorvKhatreja

Journeyman
Almost all Linux distros support NTFS, that is read support. But hardly any of them suppport writing to NTFS. But they do support writing to FAT32. That's probably why he wants to switch to FAT32.

First off, delete the partition that you wish to convert. This is done by going into Disk Management: right click "My Computer" -> Manage -> Disk Management, which is found under the Storage section. Right click the partition you wish to remove, and click "Delete Volume". This will erase the partition. Once you have done this, you must re-create the partition. This is done by right clicking on an unallocated region of a disk, and selecting "Create Partition". Then click "Create Logical Drive". Bear in mind that Windows cannot format a FAT32 partition that is any larger than 32GB. This is the case because FAT32 is terribly inefficient on volumes that are larger than 32GB: fragmentation becomes a serious problem.

He asked for conversion without loss of data. He'll lose all the data on his disk as soon as he formats it. Till date, there is no method of converting from NTFS to FAT32. Vice-versa is easy, windows has an inbuilt tool for converting from FAT32 to NTFS. But the only way to go from NTFS to FAT32 is to move the data to other partitions, follow the above procedure (given by wizrulz), and copy the data back. If you don't have so much free space on a single partition, move the data in parts to different partitions. It is very irritating and slow, but that is the only way.
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
Rather use ntfs-3g in linux. It's in beta but those whom I have heard using it haven't had a problem with it. But, mind you it's in beta still.
 

ApoorvKhatreja

Journeyman
tech_your_future said:
Rather use ntfs-3g in linux. It's in beta but those whom I have heard using it haven't had a problem with it. But, mind you it's in beta still.

It's in RC1 now :) .

*ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009
 

ApoorvKhatreja

Journeyman
That is not always successful. That is why it strongly recommends you to backup all your data. Even Partition Magic does not say that conversion will be 100% successful.
 
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