Solved Formatting the HDD from FAT32 to NTFS "Without Loosing" data

[juniorgeek]

Hey Friends,

I Need to format my HDD from FAT32 to NTFS. i made a small mistake of not formatting the drive before adding the data to it... and now i cant put files larger than 4 GB. I have data more than what i can hold aside temporarily so i need a way to format the HDD with the data in it BUT "WITHOUT LOOSING" the data.

Anyone having any suggestions is more than Welcome to share their Knwoledge.
Thanks.

I am afraid and scared!! because i had a very big problem once with my HDD that a very large number of my files were converted to .CHK files hidden in the HDD from which i recovered almost all the files except those which were more than most important to me (text files), i had gone through literally 30,000 files but still have about 10 or more thousand files (.CHK) which i have no idea what they are...
Please Help.

 

[juniorgeek]

I dont know thats even possible, do you not have another drive you can temp them on while you reformat

My only suggestion and im not sure its a great one would be to partition the drive into two pieces put data in one half, reformat the other half, swap data over and merge partition back together as new ntfs drive

Edit
that would only be poss if drive was less than half full
or split 3 ways if drive is less than 2/3 full

Possible, hmm. but my drive is not that empty i have like only about 30 GB free out of 320 GB...
btw, it is possible... Check Free Partition Magic alternative & free Partition Manager Software for Windows PC, Workstation and Server - EaseUS.
i just need some guaranteed way, or someone who has done it before, so i know i wont loose the data.

 

[Ztruker]

See here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11106-convert-fat-fat32-volume-ntfs.html

 

[johnnya]

I beleive the command is


C:\> CONVERT C: /fs:ntfs

RegardsJohnnyA oops, beat me to it Z.

 

[juniorgeek]

Thanks Guys, great help.

Though there is this one thing i dont understand -> when we ask how to convert without loosing data as we do not have another temp position to keep the data...... WHY do people then say..... backup your data to be sure! I mean if we had a place for backup why would we need to go through this long procedure?!?!?!?! we can just go to format disk!!

Anyways, wish me luck, i'm trying this!

btw, johnnya , i dont get what you meant by "RegardsJohnnyA oops, beat me to it Z."

 

[gregrocker]

You can upload your data to 7gb free storage with each Windows Live ID on https://skydrive.live.com/.

Later after reformatting and moving your data back you can sync it to same storage and then to any other devices using the Skydrive explorer tool.

 

[MilesAhead]

For a long time now PCs have come with USB ports. You can get large external USB drives for reasonable money. It's the internal drives where they are doing the price gouging.

 

[juniorgeek]

You can upload your data to 7gb free storage with each Windows Live ID on https://skydrive.live.com/.

Later after reformatting and moving your data back you can sync it to same storage and then to any other devices using the Skydrive explorer tool.

Wow, Great idea!! thanks

though, "I" might still have trouble as you might have seen i have a Three-Hundred GB of data here which i have to move - so.....
well, It may work though, for my other stuff like the documents and stuff... Thanks again

 

[Ztruker]

Online backup is very, very slows. 20GB or so could take you a week of 24/7 uploading. I know as I did this when I tried Carbonite for a year.

You are much better off to buy an external hard drive and use it to backup to.

 

[gregrocker]

You can upload your data to 7gb free storage with each Windows Live ID on https://skydrive.live.com/.

Later after reformatting and moving your data back you can sync it to same storage and then to any other devices using the Skydrive explorer tool.

Wow, Great idea!! thanks

though, "I" might still have trouble as you might have seen i have a Three-Hundred GB of data here which i have to move - so.....
well, It may work though, for my other stuff like the documents and stuff... Thanks again

You need an external HD or another intnernal HD.