[acywong]

My hard drives have been set up as FAT32 under Windows XP. Now I wish to convert the drives to NTFS.

I started to convert drive E, which is one of my data drives. I ran

convert E: /fs:ntfs

in a cmd window.
I got the following messages:

The type of the file system is FAT32.
Enter current volume label for drive E: SPARE
Convert cannot run because the volumne is in use by another process. Convert may run if this volumne is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) y
Volume dismounted. All open handles to this volume are now invalid.
Volume SPARE created 10/03/2007 11:06 PM
Volume Serial Number is 1A0A-1934
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
....some statistics regarding the disk space, etc....
Determining disk space required for file system conversion...
Total disk space: 20177608 KB
Free space on volume: 19519952 KB
Space required for conversion: 99037 KB
Converting file system
The volume does not contain a recognized file system.
Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted.
Unable to notify other components that this volume has changed.


I tried to open drive E: and I was told that it was not formatted. So I proceeded to format it as NTFS. It seems to have formatted OK:

Creating file system structures.
Format complete.
20177608 KB total disk space.
20111240 KB are available.

But when I tried to open drive E: again, I got the message:

The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted

So now I am in a situation where I have the E: drive which format recognizes as NTFS, it "can" format it without any problem, but then I cannot open the drive and it tells me that it is not formatted with a recognized file system !!

Have I done something wrong along the way or did I miss any parameters in the convert or format commands?

How do I get my drive E fixed?

Further can I convert a drive from FAT32 to NTFS without reformatting the drive and thus lose my existing data?

And if I want to convert drive C (the primay partition) from FAT32 to NTFS, how do I do it without losing my OS in the process?

Thanks very much

[brillser]

Hi there,
I don't know how you might fix your E:, do please await other posts.
Here's something for future ref:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php

Further to above link, I always manage the convertion by just doing a defrag.

this link is better still:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881

[brillser]

hi,
this link is better still.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881

[skinnywhiteboy]

If you're still running off FAT32 on your C:\ drive, that is your problem. FAT32 cannot read NTFS.

[TheOutcaste]

Originally Posted by skinnywhiteboy

If you're still running off FAT32 on your C:\ drive, that is your problem. FAT32 cannot read NTFS.

The file system on the C drive has nothing to do with it. acywong is running XP, so it can see NTFS just fine, no matter what file system it was booted from.

Something obviously went wrong somewheres along the way. You may have to first delete the partition, then create a new one and format it to get Drive E: working again.

Convert should be able to convert the drives without loss of data, but we all know there is a big difference between should and what will actually happen

Best to have a backup/image first. Run chkdsk /R on the drives first to find and mark any bad sectors, and run defrag as well, then try to convert.

Note that converted partitions will have a cluster size of 512 bytes instead of the normal NTFS default of 4KBs. The smaller cluster size is more efficient if you have a lot of small files, but may impair disk performance (lots of discussion about whether it does or doesn't and if it will be noticeable to the average user)

HTH

Jerry

[brillser]

"Note that converted partitions will have a cluster size of 512 bytes instead of the normal NTFS default of 4KBs. The smaller cluster size is more efficient if you have a lot of small files, but may impair disk performance (lots of discussion about whether it does or doesn't and if it will be noticeable to the average user)"

I've heard that said before in other posts, my own C: having been converted. I was'nt overly concerned, as everything was working just as it should. however, having defraged it just yesterday, yesterday was clean up time, I did notice that defrag listed the cluster size as 4kbs.

just a cureosity.

[brillser]

Here's what windows defrag told me:

Volume ACER C:
Volume size = 90.71 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 42.36 GB
Free space = 48.36 GB
Percent free space = 53 %


This is from a converted C:

[acywong]

Since I did a dismount of E: before, would mounting it again help to fix the problem? And how would I remount it?

Thanks.

[TheOutcaste]

Windows automatically mounts all drives that have a file system it recognizes.

You could try running chkdsk /R E: from a command prompt, it may be able to find the problem. It may say it also can't recognize the file system though. In that case I would suggest deleting the partition and starting over.

HTH

Jerry

[acywong]

I ran chkdsk /R E: and I got the following:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is SPARE.

CHKDSK is verifying files.
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes.
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data.
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space.
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

20177608 KB total disk space.
4 KB in 1 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
66356 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
20111248 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
5044402 total allocation units on disk.
5027812 allocation units available on disk.


Everything above looks fine.
But when I type E: in the command window

I again get the messages:

The volume does not contain a recognized file system.
Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted

And when I try to open E: in My Computer, it tells me that it is not formatted, and when I try to format, it says that Windows cannot complete the format.