Convert FAT or FAT32 Volume to NTFS

Scotlank · 16 Mar 2010

so I tried changing my hard drive to NTFS after for some reason it was made to FAT32 after a power outage.
I've received this following message after attempting a convert.
"F: cannot be converted because it contains files or directories with reserved NTFS names in the root directory. There can be no files or directories named $Mft, $MftMirr, $LogFile, $Volume, $AttrDef, $BitMap, $Boot, $BadClus, $Secure, $UpCase, $Extend or $Quota in the root directory."
What do I do? I am so desperate! I need my thousands of files off this drive! I have a 1TB WD My Book external USB 2.0 hard drive

Brink · 16 Mar 2010

Hello Scotlank, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If you are able to access the drive, then I would recommend that you backup anything that you do not want to lose on the drive first. It looks like the only way you may be able to have it as NTFS is to format the drive as NTFS instead, then copy the files back. Sorry.

Scotlank · 16 Mar 2010

Do you recommend any recovery programs that are free?

Brink · 16 Mar 2010

You could manually copy and paste the files you wanted backed up to another location (ex: another partition), since formatting and doing a clean install would require reinstalling all programs and drivers.

Scotlank · 17 Mar 2010

how can I move the files though if they are inaccessible?

Brink · 17 Mar 2010

Oh, I didn't realize that you didn't have any access to it at all.

You might see if you may be able to use the free program Recuva to recover any files off of the HDD.

x1morethanux · 12 Apr 2010

Hi Brink,

after I followed your instructions for using the command prompt I was received a:

the second NTFS boot sector is unwriteable.
the conversion failed.
F: was not converted to NTFS

Am I out of luck or is this fixable?

Brink · 12 Apr 2010

Hello 1morethanu, and welcome to Seven Forums.

What type of drive (ex: USB flash drive, internal HDD, etc..) are you trying to convert? Is the drive encrypted or has any write protection enabled on it.

If USB, then you may only be able to format it as NTFS instead of convert it to NTFS.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

x1morethanux · 12 Apr 2010

I have a USB flash drive. I don't think the drive is encrypted or has any write protection. Is there a way to check?

also i've tried formatting the drive through disk management, and also just through right clicking the drive from my computer and formatting through there, but both times i get a did not format successfully.

I'm not sure if this information is relevant here, but so far I've been able to format/convert my flash drive from fat32, to exfat, to raw.

thanks for your help.

Brink · 12 Apr 2010

It sounds like you may have a corrupted disk space on it. Try running a Clean All command on the USB flash drive, then see if you may be able to format it as NTFS afterwards.