my C drive is NTFS. the new drive was FAT32 out of the box. how would i change it to NTFS?

You have to reformat it. At some point you're given the choice.

Where did you get an already formatted drive?

woops, i already loaded 30+ gigs on it from various drives.

got it at compusa. i'm pretty sure it was already formatted as FAT32. it didn't give me an option.

The command line CONVERT command in Win2k or XP will allow you to convert the drive to NTFS without losing data. Read more here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/itpro/managing/convertfat.asp

Sondra is wrong, you do not have to reformat the disk to convert.

cool, thanks nolo.

i'm not sure i understand the directions for converting the drive to NTFS. it says i can use the "setup program" to convert without losing data. what is the "setup program"? is that the command prompt window where i run the convert.exe? i want to make sure i won't write over the data on the drive.


Converting to NTFS Using the Setup Program

The Setup program makes it easy to convert your partition to the new version of NTFS, even if it used FAT or FAT32 before. This kind of conversion keeps your files intact (unlike formatting a partition).

Setup begins by checking the existing file system. If it is NTFS, conversion is not necessary. If it is FAT or FAT32, Setup gives you the choice of converting to NTFS. If you don't need to keep your files intact and you have a FAT or FAT32 partition, it is recommended that you format the partition with NTFS rather than converting from FAT or FAT32. (Formatting a partition erases all data on the partition and allows you to start fresh with a clean drive.) However, it is still advantageous to use NTFS, regardless of whether the partition was formatted with NTFS or converted.

Look under Windows "help" that's built into Windows for a step by step. While you can convert from FAT32 to NTFS, the operation does involve some risk. If something goes wrong during the conversion... power outage, system hang, etc.. you run the risk of losing one or more files. So it depends how imporant any files on the drive you're about to convert are to you and if or not you have backup. For what its worth I convered from one file system to another countless times and haven't lost any data yet. So the risk factor is probably low. Still we're talking computers. They have a bad habit of causing mischief at the most unexpected times. :-)

You don't do it from Setup. Using the windows menu: Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt. Once you are in the command prompt window type "convert X: /fs:ntfs" (without quotes) without quotes to convert your drive to NTFS (substitute the drive letter of the drive you want to convert for "X").

As with all advice from the internet, double check this before you rely on it. :)

What operating systems can use NTFS?

In my situation I have a WD 120G, 7200rpm drive in an ADS EXTERNAL firewire enclosure.
My main desktop editing computer runs Windows 98SE.
My laptop runs Windows 2000.
The External drive is shared (one PC at a time of course) between the 2 computers/operating systems.
I already have video files stored on the external drive.
I think I could convert the external drive by formatting it from the WIN2000 laptop but would the drive still work on the Windows 98 machine??
What is the best solution for sharing this hard drive between these two computers?
Thanks in advance.
MR

I think you're stuck with the lowest common denominator between Win2K and Win98, which is FAT32.

There are programs which will allow Win9x to read/write an NTFS partition, but I would hesitate to use them for a production environment. NTFS, in my view, is far more stable and robust than FAT32.

Bob.