NTFS to FAT32

Geminiwave · Aug 13, 2005, 12:37 AM

so heres the deal. I have in my hands a LaCie 80gb hard drive thats fairly full. It is set for NTFS. Why? I don't know. And neither does my brother (the owner of said hard drive)

the problem is that he cannot do much of anything with the hard drive because he has a mac now and macs cant write to NTFS. SOOOOOOOO I know that I can non-destructively convert from Fat32 to NTFS but is there a non-destructive way to switch back? We dont have space to move all of his files to a desktop see...thats the problem.

Any suggestions?

Tipstaff · Aug 13, 2005, 03:25 AM

Edit: Going to edit the first part out. I just rememered that even with OS X version 10.4.1 or higher you still can't write to an NTFS partition, only read from it. That said...

There are only 2 things I can think of:

1) You can try to use "Disk Utility" to convert it to HFS+. Now, what that will do to the data... that I don't know.

2) You can use Partition Magic. It is able to convert from NTFS to Fat32. Make sure to use at least version 8.0 or higher. Anything less is buggy, and, well.. will bugger your drive.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 13, 2005, 05:48 AM

Partition Magic 8.0 Trial, should work, don't know if its "limited"
http://www.soft32.com/download-Parti...gic-151-5.html

PangingJr · Aug 13, 2005, 08:36 AM

read the PartitionMagic 8.0 user guide, you would find the following info under the NTFS ->FAT/FAT32 conversion...
you might receive an error message and the conversion stops,
make sure that there is enough temporary space in the partition to do the conversion.
the conversion will require the NTFS system and the FAT32 system files until the last step of the conversion. Also, there is data in NTFS File Replication Services that must be moved to external clusters and saved.

i would not do the conversion if all of the files are important files.
but i always have the other option of copying/moving it to others hard drive with a compatible filesystem,
hook up some more hard drives to the local or network PCs, or network the PC to another that got more hard drive space.

pr0digal jenius · Aug 13, 2005, 12:50 PM

or you might try firing up knoppix with both drives installed, and just migrate data

Geminiwave · Aug 13, 2005, 01:52 PM

shit. I think I torched it. It converted fine i THOUGHT and shows up in partition magic as being 80gb but in windows it shows up as being 9gb. When I OPEN the drive, the files are there and it claims to take up 50gb, but then the files wont run at all.

sigh

im trying to convert it back to NTFS to see if the files are rescuable, but other than that I think I hosed it.

fortunately I have most of the music backed up.

Geminiwave · Aug 13, 2005, 04:55 PM

ah nevermind. It wasnt destroyed. For some reason it magically fixed itself when I told it to convert back to NTFS. I backed up the most important files(since i dont have alot of free space) and formatted it completely to Fat32. NOW it works fine. jeez...

Tipstaff · Aug 13, 2005, 10:27 PM

Pain in the ass, isn't it?

Geminiwave · Aug 14, 2005, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Pain in the ass, isn't it?

on many levels.

PangingJr · Aug 14, 2005, 02:48 AM

glad it turned out okay.

some info about this for others.

taken from PartitionMagic User Guide. (PM8.PDF).

Quote:

NTFS Information Lost When Converting to FAT or FAT32 If you can complete the conversion from NTFS to FAT or FAT32, you may receive a warning about the quality of data and feature loss, depending on the features used on the partition, the type of data, and the partition size.

Warning: Error
Description: The conversion is not allowed. Because the partition being converted is using advanced features in NTFS, you may experience unintended data and feature loss. You will receive an error in one or more of the following cases:

• There is more than one data stream for any file.
• Any links.
• Any extended attributes.
• Any user-defined attributes in any file.
• Device entries.
• There are sparse files on the volume. Any sparse files, except for the bad sector file, will stop the conversion.

Warning: Warning
Description: The conversion is allowed. Although a conversion warning is not as serious as an error, you may still experience the loss of NTFS-specific features that are not supported in FAT or FAT32.
You will receive a conversion warning in one or more of the following cases:

• Disk usage quotas - NTFS supports limiting the amount of disk space for a user. After conversion, all users will have full access to all free hard disk space.
• Access control lists - This is a file attribute that lists all the users that can access a file. After conversion, all users will have full access to all files.
• Index of access control lists - A list of all files that have specific access rights assigned to them. After conversion, all users will have full access to all files.
• FAST index file - This file is sometimes created on Windows 2000 computers. After conversion, all indexing of keywords will be lost.
• Old versions of files - NTFS has the ability to keep versions of files, however, only the current version of the file is converted and saved.

Warning: No Warning
Description: The conversion is allowed. The most basic NTFS partition still gives files more features than are found in FAT or FAT32. When Windows NT 4.0 is used to copy files from an NTFS partition to a FAT partition, no warning is given about the features you are losing. Also, the conversion will not give you a warning about specific features that cannot be converted.

These features include:

• Standard journal file (only used internally by NTFS) - This file is a transaction log of changes to the NTFS file system. After conversion, the journal file will be lost.
• NTFS-specific file attributes - NTFS and FAT both have standard file attributes, such as Read-only, Archive, Hidden, and System. NTFS has additional file attributes that can be set. After conversion, however, these additional file attributes will be lost.
• NTFS-specific file dates - The last edit date is converted to the FAT date. After conversion, the creation date, last access date, and last edit date (date change only) will be lost.
• Reliable change journal - This journal file is used by Windows 2000 and Windows XP. After conversion, this file will be lost.

Falstaff · Aug 14, 2005, 03:00 AM

why not just stick to NTFS for the future....I mean it just makes good sense..

Tipstaff · Aug 14, 2005, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falstaff

why not just stick to NTFS for the future....I mean it just makes good sense..

For the drive to be both read and writable under both Windows and Apple OS the drive needs to be in FAT (FAT or FAT32). OS X v.10.4.1 or higher is able to read from the drive, but is unable to write to it OR repartition/format NTFS drives. The only way around the 2nd problem is to hook up the drive externally using a USB enclosure, and then unmount the drive. For some reason OS X will recognize it for partitioning/formating. What's really stupid is that with FAT32 you will run the risk of hitting the 4GB max file size. So stupid.

As for the first problem, I was talking with a friend of mine who deals with Macs a lot, and from what he was saying there is a "limited" writablility with OS X and NTFS drives. Here's the catch: all file names must adhere to the old 8.3 filename structure, and contain no spaces. My friend also mentioned that in order to use this though entails running Terminal, and using a couple command line options. I'm going by what he said, so I can't verify this.

Of note: That same friend got me thinking about something. The NTFS file system is copywritten by Microsoft. With OS X Apple wrote a utility in order to support the reading of NTFS paritions since that doesn't effect the copywrite. However, in order for Apple to be able to write using that file system they would have to license the use of it from Microsoft. Nice one, hmm?

Falstaff · Aug 14, 2005, 04:29 AM

I guess I am looking forward to the adoption of the new x86 processors for Macs and the code changes, it surely means that NTFS or something similiar will be adapted. And yes I agree, Bill Gates has his finger in everything....sigh

Tipstaff · Aug 14, 2005, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falstaff

I guess I am looking forward to the adoption of the new x86 processors for Macs and the code changes, it surely means that NTFS or something similiar will be adapted. And yes I agree, Bill Gates has his finger in everything....sigh

Actually, that's a misconception people have. By switching to an x86 architecture Apple won't have to change the filing system they use. All Apple is doing is changing the brains of the system. It really just boils down to changing the way programs do their math. For Apples HSF+ filing system, it works just fine on x86 based systems. In fact that's problaby 1 of a handful of things that Apple doesn't need to worry about. Since most parts in a Mac are generic parts these days it shouldn't be too much trouble for them.