Converting FAT32 to NTFS

I'm sure I've asked this before, but I'm still a little unclear about the process.

About a year ago I installed Win-XP over Win-98, by that I mean installed the Win-XP Home Upgrade version. After a few minor bug, I got everything working fine and my computer seems reasonably stable.

At the time I converted from 98 to XP I did NOT convert the files system to the XP file system NTFS.

I have a 60Gb Hard Drive partitioned into four sections; 8Gb, 15.6Gb, 15.6Gb, and 18.6Gb (rougly). I kept the C: partition (8Gb) small to keep the cluster size small, but If I convert to NTFS I won't have to be concerned about cluster size.

So, I would like to convert to NTFS and increase the first partition, and decrease the others. Say something like 12Gb, 15Gb, 15Gb, 15Gb (again, roughly).

I only install OS, drivers, and software that insists on being installed on C: on my first partition. All my other software is installed on D: drive, misc. Data storage on E:, and long term storage on F:.

That sounds nice, but I'm not sure I trust the Microsoft File Conversion program.

Has anyone tried this? How reliable is the program?

What are the chances an error will mess up my partitions and leave my whole drive unusable?

Can the conversion utility also change the partition sizes, or do I need another program for that?

Will it modify the whole drive at once, or do I have to do each partition individually?

What are the real advantages to the format conversion?

Any help or advice anyone can offer on this process would be greatly appreciated.

Again, my computer is and has been running very stable.

Abit KT7/Athlon Thunderbird 900/512Mb SDRAM

Thank for whatever help you can offer.

Steve/boyblue

The conversion utility can Not adjust partition sizes. You'd need a program like Partition Magic. (about $75 USD) You could buy a new 120 gig drive from Best Buy for 49.99 plus Acronics Imagining software for about the same price as PM...Acronics will do a "porportional image" or you can manual adjust partition size durning the process.

The conversion to NTFS utiliity works 99.99% of the time. So, backup your important data to avoid creating a boat anchor...

Hi, please accept this as an opinion only, I do not recommend any upgrade install (98 to xp), a partitioned hard drive will be slower and the question needs to be asked, why partition? A 80 gb USB hdd is available if you want backup. I would format and do a fresh install after backing up my data, use the ntfs file system. If you wish to do as you ask then you can, each partition needs to be converted this site tells the best way.
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

I could be wrong but I remember reading somewhere that when you convert from Fat32 to NTFS the cluster size is bigger than if you had converted before the install of Windows. As I remember there was no performance issue in this.

Doc

The cluster size is smaller rather than bigger Doc (512bytes instead of 4K), and it does slow things down having such a small cluster size. But the article that Jenae linked to explains how to get a 4K cluster size.

BTW it only applies if the drive was formatted as FAT32 using DOS or any version of Windows other than WinXP - if XP was used for the format then you'll al;ways get a 4K cluster size with Convert.

Steve R Jones -

Why buy a new hard drive when the drives I have are not even remotely close to full? My C: 8Gb partition still has 3Gb free, and remember I never install software on the C: drive unless I absolutely have to. My D: 15.6Gb partition which is where most of my software is installed still has 12Gb free, and my E: drive has 15Gb free, my F: drive has 18Gb free. So, how does having a new drive help me?

I'm happy with how my computer is running now, but Norton does a terrible job of optimising the C: drive, which means I've got files and folders scattered all through my free space. After 3 consecutive Speed Disk optimizations, I'm still 11% fragmented. In fact, it went from 7% fragmented to 11% fragmented; I hardly consider that 'optimized'. Win Defrag uses a different approach but still doesn't do a very good job. Plus Windows has this horrible idea that every single thing on my computer should be on my C: drive in the Documents and Settings folder. I even tried moving my Mozilla, Thunderbird, and Foxfire data files on to the D: drive but without much luck.

So, Win-XP doesn't make very good use of a partitioned drive. That's why I wanted to expand my C: drive. However, if I expand it to over 8Gb using FAT32, the cluster size increased from 4,096 to 8,192 bytes. Not terrible, but also not great. However, for nearly any likely hard drive, Win-XP uses 4,096 cluster size, generally, regardless of the partition size. Actually, anything over 2Gb will use 4,096 clusters

Jenae-

Good advice, but it's already a done deal. I clear nearly everything off my Win-98 FAT32 hard drive and installed Win-XP Home Edition Upgrade, once it was up and running, I re-installed all my software, updated all the drivers, and went from there. It was a pretty clean install and things went well, or as well as things ever go in Windows.

Here is my philosophy on partitioning. Windows, regardless of version, keeps track of used and free space in a table. Part of the delay in finding a file is looking it up in the table. So the question is, do I want to try and find a file in a table of 15,000,000 entries (60Gb) or do I want look up that information in a table of 2,000,000 entries (8Gb?. In short, by creating four small 'look-up' tables, I make the job more managable. Also, each section of the drive has it's own table. So, when I have to 'look-up' a file on the D: drive, the Table is on the D: drive, and the hard drive read heads only have to look on the D: drive. If I have one huge partition, I have to search through a huge table, and I have to move across a huge drive. That is, the heads have to 'seek' from one part of the drive D: partition to another part of the drive D: partition, rather that 'look-up' at the beginning of Drive C: then having to move to the middle of drive C:, as it would do if it had a single partition. So, it's not an efficiency or performance problem so much as it is a management problem. It seems easier to manage four small tables than one HUGE one.

Also, it forces me to organize my files and programs; OS, drivers, and critical Utilities on the C:, all general programs and data on the D: drive (Mozilla, Foxfire, Thunderbird, MS-Office, Graphics programs, none-critical utilities, Zone Alarm, etc...). Drives E: and F: are used more for long term and high volume storage.

If I was starting again with a new Win-XP install, I would probably just have three partitions., but I would still definitely have partitions.

Doc-

If I understand you right, what you are saying is that the cluster size for a conversion from FAT32 to NTFS is not or will not or might not be the same as for a direct install of Win-XP? Can anyone confirm or deny this? Does anyone have a link to some place that might explain why this is if it is true?

Actually, I had a 30Gb Win-98 FAT32 hard drive that crapped out. So, I bought a new 60Gb HD. I installed Win-98 and my basic necessity programs, then decide that as long as most of my programs were uninstalled, it might be a good time to convert to Win-XP. Also, by that time Win-98 wasn't simply unsupported but had been completely abandoned. The drive was partitioned with FAT32 with Win-98 installed. Then I installed the Win-XP Home Upgrade. It was actually a pretty uneventful process and my computer runs fine.

Now that Win-XP and Norton Speed Disk both do such a poor job of managing my hard drive space, I'm thinking it would be nice to have a larger C: drive partition. But the only realistic way to do that would be to convert to NTFS.

The problem is I really don't trust the convertion program and process. Still those here with experience seem to thing the process is as fool-proof as is possible for a Windows system.

Jenae-

Thanks for the link, that looks like a very informative site, and should be very helpful.

I'm still open to suggestion, and thanks to everyone who has responded so far.

Steve/boyblue

I have converted a slew of systems from FAT32 to NTFS with the command "convert c: /fs:ntfs". Don't ever remember having a problem either. Type in the command, answer "Y"es (if I'm remembering correctly) and let her rip. Within in a few minutes (depending on the size of the hard drive and the speed of the system) your file system will be converted from FAT32 to NTFS. Maybe one of the reasons you don't hear much about it is because it's really quite a simple procedure.

Unless the power goes out in the middle of it. :)

Convert is about as fool-proof as it gets. Partition Magic etc are far riskier (but still mostly work). In either case, I can't stress the need to backup enough.

Thanks to everyone, that answers a lot of my questions.

Steve/boyblue

One last point, somewhere I read a suggestion that for the best result when converting to NTFS, I should first use a program called BootIt Next Generation, which is a partition and multiboot manager, to make sure my partitions start on a 4,096 cluster boundary. Unfortunately, I can't find that reference again.

Does anyone have experience with this program? It was merely suggested I use it to align the drive on 4k boundaries, would other users also recommend it for resizing my partitions?

Does anyone know the procedure for re-aligning the cluster boundaries?

Would it be better to use another product to change the partition size? Partition Magic (Symantec)? Partition Commnader(V-Com)? Other?

Also, I'm unfamiliar with the process of changing partition sizes. As I said I would like to end up with something like 12Gb, 15Gb, 15Gb, 15Gb (again, roughly). [originally 8Gb, 16Gb, 16Gb, 18Gb (very roughly)]

So, do I shrink the last partion to 15Gb first, then ... what? Expand the first partition and let the partition software shift everything? Or do I just tell the partition manager the final sizes I want and let it work everything out? Do I convert the partition sizes before or after I do the FAT to NTFS convertion?

Any insight into the procedure would be greatly appreciated, as would any suggestion for reliable software to perform the task; perferably moderately inexpensive software. I'm on a very limited income.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

Steve/boyblue

PS: One last and final point, I have a 40Gb USB Drive, is there any chance that CONVERT can convert that drive to NTFS? I supose I could install it as a second Hard drive and convert it that way. That wouldn't be too big a problem, but I'm wondering if I can convert it as a USB drive. Just curious.

Steve