Fat32 to NTFS?

[RangerRick]

Here's a question or 2 that I think has no easy answer or solution.

I'm in the process of building a new system, and will be initially moving over my 2 40gb drives. They are formatted Fat32. One is a gaming and the other XP pro with applications. I will be moving over all my periferals to the new system.

The new system consists of:
motherboard- ASUS K8V SE Deluxe K8T800, cpu- AMD 64 +3400 retail, memory- Kingston 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail x2.

This will be the initial build with the old disks, graphics card, sound card, and dvd and cdrw.

Question 1: Will XP work with me doing it this way? Or will I have to do a reinstall?

After I have this configuration and hopefully do not have to do a rebuild of the disks, I plan to then implement 2- maxtor 160gb SATA drives into the system in a raid 0 array. They will be configured into 3 NTFS partitions: 60 gb system and apps, 80gb gaming, and 20 gb multimedia.

Now the $64000 question. Is there anyway to move my 40gb FAT32 system disk to the NTFS system partition disk? I do not relish reinstalling XP and all my applications, utilities, not to mention my games onto the gaming partition.

I do not want to spend days :rolleyes: doing a complete rebuild.

Serious replies only need apply! :joker: :lol:

Cheers!

Rich

[Cloudw4lker]

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_rjrb.asp


or in short go start-->run--> convert.exe (drive letter): /fs:ntfs

that should work if not read the link.

for the one with the system files on it you're going to have to do something different, read the link.

defrag after you do this.

if you need help and can't to it any otehr way try going start-->run--> convert.exe /?

[Kalbrecht]

Alternatively, I think you can just do it through Windows Explorer - right click on the drive and do it through 'Properties'.

(from memory, mind you...)

[0x64657200 0x6A61636B616C00]

I think this is what you're asking, but;

Are you wanting to copy the OS off the 40GB Windows drive to one of the new SATA partitions?

[RangerRick]

Yessir!

And I have fat32 on the 40gb, and will have the SATA drives as NTFS

[Mr. Natural]

If you're installing a new motherboard and processor on a pre-exisiting WinXP installation you'll likely have to do a clean install. It's very doubtfull that the pc will boot when you install the drives into the new system. The drive which is not your boot drive will probably work. You can run the convert command mentioned previously on it.
One trick you might try so that you don't have to format the drive and lose everything is use a boot disk, (since they're fat32 drives) and use the deltree command to delete windows and the boot files. Then you can do a "clean install" of windows and keep most of your program files.
Best option though is to backup the boot drive, or at least all critical data, format and reinstall Windows. You might also have to wrestle with re-creating shortcuts to the games and programs running on second disk. Also the reigsitry entries won't be there......you're probably better off redoing it all. Have fun! :lol:

[RangerRick]

If you're installing a new motherboard and processor on a pre-exisiting WinXP installation you'll likely have to do a clean install. It's very doubtfull that the pc will boot when you install the drives into the new system.
:eek: :drink: :mad2:

I sure hope not! All the patches will take 2 days to apply, and thenthe reinstall and config of all the software, including games!

That's freakin' rediculous!

[0x64657200 0x6A61636B616C00]

Well, sorry to say, but if you're looking to essentially move the OS from one hard drive to another, you're in for a rough, ROUGH time. File systems aside, it's not terribly easy to move all that over.

W/o complicating matters too much, you'd be better served to use the 40GB which has your OS on it in the new machine AS the OS drive. Use the SATA set up for installing games and such. You can covert the Drive from Fat32 to NTFS quite easily.

Example: Move the existing 40GB Windows drive into the new machine, perofrm an Inplace installation of Windows XP. This will take care of the problems Mr. Natural was talking about as well as save your existing settings, files and such. You'll have to reinstall the Windows Updates, but nothing else. Defrag the drive after you're done and Bob's your Uncle.

Otherwise, you're better off using the Files and Settings transfer Wizard getting what you need off the existing drive, and doing a clean install on the SATA only drive configuration.

Attempting to move the existing OS from one drive to another is more trouble than it's honestly worth. :)

[RangerRick]

Well guys,

The new system is up and running! I had 1 cable problem, and that's it.

I'm still running fat32 on the IDE drives for now. Sometime in the next week, I'll plug in the SATA drives and format them in a raid 0 array, then see if I can then Ghost the drive.

Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it! :thumbup: