Convert FAT32 to NTFS Without Losing Data

Friday, 16 November 2012

Convert FAT32 to NTFS Without Losing Data

NTFS and FAT32 are the most common file system of Windows operating system. Before the emergence of NTFS, FAT32 is generally accepted as the most powerful file system to basically satisfy the needs of user. While as the fast development of computer business, FAT32 gradually falls short of the increasing demands of user.

You have a flash drive or probably an external hard drive that currently has FAT32 file system and you want to change it to NTFS?

If your answer is yes then this article for you as it explains exactly how you can achieve seamless transition from FAT32 to NTFS without involving any data loss.

Why use NTFS Over FAT32?

Let's say you have FAT32 and You want to unrar large file (>4GB) and Windows tells you that you cannot unpack it because you don’t have enough hard drive space. Even if you do, you’ll still generate this error. This is because FAT32 drives do not support large files on it (anything over 4 GB).

Important: While this method works perfectly, I would still advise you to backup your data in case anything goes wrong.

FAT 32 to NTFS Conversion Steps

Press the Start button.
Type cmd in the search bar if you use Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows Vista. If you use Windows XP, click on Run and then execute cmd.

You will then see this

Go to your “My Computer” icon, and see the name of the letter that stands in from of the drive you want to convert!
Type "chkdsk j: /f " (without quotes) where J is the letter of the drive to undergo conversion and press Enter. This checks the drive for errors and fixes them automatically.

See the figure below

Type "Convert J: /FS:NTFS" (without quotes) and press Enter. J is again the letter of the drive to be converted.

See the figure below

The command prompt will start the conversion process and after a few minutes, CMD will say that conversion was successful.
You can check it in the properties of the drive through right click<Properties.

See the figure below

That's all.This works on Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Vista. I converted my flash drive's file system using these steps and it worked flawlessly.

Note: Once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS, you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32. You will need to reformat the drive or partition which will erase all data, including programs and personal files, on the partition

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