Changing external drive from FAT32 to NTFS in Vista

[Jeff Strouse]

I have an external Seagate drive (it's only 150 GB), but I wanted to use it for backing up some files. I got it a few years ago, and it's on the FAT32 file system. Someone told me I should make it NTFS. This particular system uses Vista.

I took all the files already on it, and moved them over to the internal harddrive. Now that the external drive is empty, I figure I should format the drive...how do I do this? After I format it to NTFS, I'll move those files back to it, and set up the backup feature in Vista.

I haven't done anything yet, waiting for advice. When I copy the files back on the newly formatted drive, will it automatically make them NTFS?

Thanks for any help!

[Mitch Drumm]

I took all the files already on it, and moved them over to the internal harddrive. Now that the external drive is empty, I figure I should format the drive...how do I do this? After I format it to NTFS, I'll move those files back to it, and set up the backup feature in Vista.

I haven't done anything yet, waiting for advice. When I copy the files back on the newly formatted drive, will it automatically make them NTFS?

Thanks for any help!

You should just be able to right click the drive and choose format and then choose NTFS from there. I don't have Vista anymore, but that's as I recall it.

Don't worry about moving the files back. You don't have to do anything to them. Files are not "NTFS"; it's the underlying file system that is NTFS. Think of a checkerboard. The file system is analogous to the checkerboard and the files are analogous to the checkers. The checkers don't care if your checkerboard is blue, black, made of wood, steel, etc.

[Chris Dorch]

I took all the files already on it, and moved them over to the internal harddrive. Now that the external drive is empty, I figure I should format the drive...how do I do this? After I format it to NTFS, I'll move those files back to it, and set up the backup feature in Vista.

I haven't done anything yet, waiting for advice. When I copy the files back on the newly formatted drive, will it automatically make them NTFS?

Thanks for any help!

You should just be able to right click the drive and choose format and then choose NTFS from there. I don't have Vista anymore, but that's as I recall it.

Don't worry about moving the files back. You don't have to do anything to them. Files are not "NTFS"; it's the underlying file system that is NTFS. Think of a checkerboard. The file system is analogous to the checkerboard and the files are analogous to the checkers. The checkers don't care if your checkerboard is blue, black, made of wood, steel, etc.

Right-Click>Format erases the drive and re-formats it... This will destroy all data there..

What you should do, is Start>Run>type cmd>Ok
In the command prompt type:

Convert DriveLetterHereWithColon /FS:NTFS

Example: Convert D: /FS:NTFS

With this command, the data will not be erased and the file system will be converted.

[Jeff Strouse]

Thanks Mitch and Chris!

[Tom Diemer]

Another way would be to right-click on 'computer', choose 'manage'. Once in the management tool, choose 'disk management'.

There you can remove the FAT32 partition, recreate it and format with NTFS from that screen.

Since the drive has had data on it previously, use regular format, not 'quick'.

I don't think simply formatting would convert to NTFS. Running the conversion tool would work, but the purpose of that is for converting disks that contain data, without loosing anything. Deleting and recreating the partition would be quick and easy.

$.02