How To Convert FAT/FAT32 to NTFS without losing Data

How To Convert FAT/FAT32 to NTFS without losing Data

So, Why Use NTFS over FAT32?

Let’s say you have FAT32. You want to unrar a large file (> 4 GB) 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).

Solution / How to Do It:

You don’t need to install a program to change the filetype from FAT32 to NTFS.

1. Press the Start button.

2. Go to Run…

3. Type in "cmd" without the quotes, press OK.

You will then see this:

4. Go to your C:/ folder, by typing in cd\, (or "cd.."just as long till you have reached C:/ ). See above image. Likewise, type in "cd c:\" works, as well.

5. Go to your "My Computer" icon, and see the name of the letter that stands in from of the drive you want to convert!

6. Back in cmd, Press in "CONVERT X: /FS:NTFS" (without the quotes). The X is for the letter your system drive, or external drive name. (see Step 5)

7. On the question ‘convert lost chains top files Y/N?‘ press ‘y‘ and continue.

8. cmd will now check the file system and the rest. If your cmd finishes, your file system is converted to NTFS. You can close down cmd. (If you want to check if it really did finished, go to ‘My Computer’ and right click on the drive, select ‘Properties’ to see what kind of file system it has).

9. If cmd says: ‘X: was not converted to NFTS, the conversion failed etc, you must follow the next steps!

10. As you can see above, my cmd failed the first time. Next solution.

11. Type in "chkdsk X: /f", where X is the letter of your drive. Wait a while to finish.

12. You’ll be asked to ‘convert lost chains top files Y/N?‘ press ‘y‘ and continue. Wait for it to finish.

13. After this, cmd will say that converting was successful. Check it by going to your computer, and single click on the drive to see what kind of file system your drive has. You may need to repeat step 6.