What is NTFS and FAT32?
These are file systems formats for your hard drive For Windows 98SE and before, FAT32 or FAT16 wass the file type for your hard disk NTFS is the standard file system for Windows XP. People say that NTFS is faster than FAT32, as it is far superior. Especially when defragmenting, FAT32 is way slower.
When you able to use this?
When you buy a external harddrive, the standard is FAT32. Annoying. Moreover, some WinXP installations (in particular, XP upgrades) are done on FAT32 drives.
Why to use NTFS over FAT32?
Suppose,you have a flash drive or probably an external hard drive that currently has running on FAT32 file system and you want to change it to NTFS , because FAT32 does not support handling large files (over 4GB) or it is just simply old for your taste but there is just one problem, you don't want to lose your saved data.
While it is generally recommended to use the NTFS file system because of its stability, security and lesser defragmentation time, most of us end up using FAT32 because that is what most disks are preformatted with. Unless, we notice the “Not enough disk space error” despite disk space being available, we don't bother to change the file system. Moreover, most of us don't change it because of the risk of losing important data and lack of time. So here i gonna post a tutorial to convert file system from FAT32 to NTFS .
How to identify file system?
Just right click on drive that you want to guess file type, click properties.here you can get file system type.
Steps you have to perform using command prompt (NTFS To Fat32)
1. Note down the name of the drive whose file system you wish to convert.
2. Click on Start menu.
3. if you are Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows Vista user then Type cmd in the search bar and right click on cmd and click on "
Run As Administrator" . If you use Windows XP, click on Run and then execute cmd.
Type "
chkdsk e: /f " (without quotes) where e is the letter of the drive to undergo conversion. This checks the drive for errors and fixes them automatically.
Suppose in my case if the drive letter was "h". Then I have to simply write "chkdsk h: /f" with no quotes and then Enter.
It will try to detect errors and automatically fixes them.
5. Next you have to execute a command "
Convert H: /FS:NTFS" (without quotes). H is again the letter of the drive to be converted.
6. The command prompt will start the conversion process and after a few minutes, CMD will say that conversion was successful.
7. You can check file system as explained above in "How to identify file systems?" i.e Right click-> Properties.
Steps you have to perform using application (NTFS To Fat32, Fat32 To NTFS)
A cool application named Aomei NTFS to Fat32 converter has ability to switch between these file systems without formatting drives.
1. Download
Aomei NTFS to Fat32 converter and install it on your machine.
2. At very basic start screen you will be asked to choose File type conversion methods. Select one that you want to proceed.
3.
Choose drive and click on
Next.
4.Click on P
roceed.
5.Do similar while converting from NTFS to FAT 32.
Note: You may loose the data while converting from Fat32 To NTFS.
The key plan behind this trick is use of system reserved Keywords. Keywords are the reserved words in any artificial language that can't be used as names of variables.Windows additionally uses sure keywords in its programming. a number of them are con, aux, lpt1, lpt2, lpt3, lpt4, lpt5, lpt6, lpt7, lpt8 and lpt9 that all are key words.
