problems converting my 1.5tb to ntfs

[anarchy99]

im running windows 7

i have usb external 1.5tb drive that was formatted fat32

i dont want to loose the data on it but dont have the room anywhere to backup and format

i tried the convert command in command prompt, the 1st time it got a dirt disk at 38% of checking it so i ran chkdsk as it said but that found no problems so i ran the convert command again it got passed that part and got to the converting step and then failed

its got enough space its got just under a 1tb left and the convert thing determined it needed about 2gb ao what can be causing it to contine to fail and/or is there any other way i can convert the drive without data loss

thanks

[+BudMan MVC]

Never been a big fan of converting filesystems

I would really suggest you just find the space to move off, and then do a clean format to ntfs.

If you can not beg or borrow some temp space from a buddy. You could do this since you say your only using 500GB of the 1TB.

1) Shrink the partition down as much as you can - you should be able to shrink it down to close to 500GB as you can.. But all you really need is to shrink it by more than 500GB.. You will then have unallocated space.. Say you can shrink it to 750GB..

2) Format this now unallocated space (the 750GB) to NTFS.

3) Copy your files from the fat part to the shiny new ntfs partition, then delete the fat partition.

4) Resize your ntfs partition to fill up the disk - now you have your 1.5TB disk as NTFS drive.

Now since the windows tools will not allow you to expand a partition into unallocated space that is on the left of a partition your going to need to use a 3rd party tool.. Be it Gparted liveCD/usb or something that will run inside windows - say the FREE easeus tool (if your 7 is 32bit) http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

If your 64bit you and don't want to use gparted - then here is one that supports win 7 x64, http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html But I have not personally used it.. But it gets good reviews.

edit: Hmmm -- just notice, does not seem like the built in tools allow you to shrink a fat32 partition?? So yeah your going to need to use a 3rd party tool for even the first step of shrinking.. I don't work with fat32 much any more since its such a OLD filesystem

Edited July 13, 2010 by BudMan

[anarchy99]

  On 13/07/2010 at 18:54, BudMan said:

Never been a big fan of converting filesystems

I would really suggest you just find the space to move off, and then do a clean format to ntfs.

If you can not beg or borrow some temp space from a buddy. You could do this since you say your only using 500GB of the 1TB.

1) Shrink the partition down as much as you can - you should be able to shrink it down to close to 500GB as you can.. But all you really need is to shrink it by more than 500GB.. You will then have unallocated space.. Say you can shrink it to 750GB..

2) Format this now unallocated space (the 750GB) to NTFS.

3) Copy your files from the fat part to the shiny new ntfs partition, then delete the fat partition.

4) Resize your ntfs partition to fill up the disk - now you have your 1.5TB disk as NTFS drive.

Now since the windows tools will not allow you to expand a partition into unallocated space that is on the left of a partition your going to need to use a 3rd party tool.. Be it Gparted liveCD/usb or something that will run inside windows - say the FREE easeus tool (if your 7 is 32bit) http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

If your 64bit you and don't want to use gparted - then here is one that supports win 7 x64, http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html But I have not personally used it.. But it gets good reviews.

edit: If you don't want to use 3rd party, it can be done with the windows tools -- just take an extra step or so..

After you have moved your files from the fat to your ntfs part, and deleted the fat part -- create new part in this unallocated space at the beginning of the disk and make it NTFS.. Then copy your files back from ntfs part at end of disk, then delete - then expand the ntfs part that is at the beginning of the disk using the built in tools.

I can give better instructions if you want.. If going the built in tools route - when you shrink the partition down, the new partition you create in the unallocated space you free up by the shrink does not even have to be ntfs - since you just going to delete it anyway.

thanks for the run around idea it sounds like it might work

im running win7 x64 so il look into Partition Wizard

anyone else got any other recommendations for software that can partition the empty space without messing with the data? and then combine later to ntfs like that

thanks

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

You get a dirty disk error? I think that's what I read :/

In command prompt type this without quotes

"fsutil dirty query E:" where E: refers to your drive letter.

See if that tells you the drive is dirty. If it does, make sure that when you are running CHKDSK that you are running it with the /f parameter.

"CHKDSK /f"

[+BudMan MVC]

Well I just took a look at the partitionwizard -- looks like they limit fat32 to like 384GB?? I would go with gparted if I were you.

Like I said, not a fan of convert -- and if the built in tool is having a problem, I would not suggest doing the convert with a 3rd party tool -- the resize will allow you to create clean filesystem vs convert.

And as brought up -- how are you running chkdsk - make sure you specific to repair.. I don't believe it does so without the /f or /r flag.

[xdot.tk]

If you don't want to loose data, I suggest you invest in some more space so you can mirror all your important data. That external will die one day.

[+BudMan MVC]

^ very good advice!!!! You should always have a backup of critical data, but then again maybe this data is not really critical, just prefer not to loose sort of data.

Example of such data -- I have have loads of ISO files for all sorts of linux distros, windows media, liveCDs, diagnostic tools, etc. Now it would pretty much suck ass if lost the HDD copy, but not really worth the space to back it up.. I have hard copies of some of them, all of which could all be re downloaded if need be, etc. I will live with the risk of loosing that disk and the files on them, cuz hopefully before the disk fails will be moving to newer larger faster disk sort of thing.

Maybe his files of the same sort, but Im with you -- backup, backup, backup!! ;) You should always have space around to be able to move files off one disk to another, etc... So not having the space to move files around so you can format is a good sign your low on space ;)