Formatting a drive from FAT32 to NTFS

Formatting a drive from FAT32 to NTFS

(also converting fat32 to NTFS)

Warning!! Formatting a drive with data on it will lead to data loss, only proceed if you know what you are doing.

 

In this document we will go over the procedure for converting a drive to NTFS.

  1. You will need a Computer with Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7
  2. The Drive you want to format
  3. You may need to be logged on as an Administrator to complete this task.

You may need to format/convert the following Hardware over to NTFS:

  • USB Flash Drives
  • IDE/SATA Hard Drives
  • ESATA and Firewire external drives

For the following reasons:

  • Security on files/permissions on files
  • Capcity for larger files (Greater than 2GB)
  • File Encryption & Compression (EFS)

Converting a drive to NTFS on the Command prompt (CMD)

C:\>convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

After some time the procedure will be completed, in some cases such as System drive like C: the machine will need to reboot to finsh the process.