how do you convert fat to ntfs?

[Micropocalypse]

:confused

[XPerties]

Partition Magic 7 will do it for you, or if your planning on doing a fresh install anytime soon you can do it while you install XP. XP does it also.

-Chris

[Guest LouCypher]

And if you don't have Partition Magic 7 and already have XP installed you can use CONVERT.EXE, which comes with XP and is in the WINDOWSsystem32 directory. Usage is below:

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C:WINDOWSsystem32>convert /?

Converts FAT volumes to NTFS.

CONVERT volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity] [/X]

volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),

mount point, or volume name.

/FS:NTFS Specifies that the volume is to be converted to NTFS.

/V Specifies that Convert should be run in verbose mode.

/CvtArea:filename

Specifies a contiguous file in the root directory to be

the place holder for NTFS system files.

/NoSecurity Specifies the converted files and directories security

settings to be accessible by everyone.

/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.

All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid.

[/code:1:a0f14cd66f]

[Micropocalypse]

thanks, knew there was a system util that could do it, just forgot he name.

[PriZm77]

whats the difference between the two?

what is better, or shall I say what is for what?

I am a gamer, stick with Fat32?

[XPerties]

the biggest difference is stabilty of your system and there files. It wont effect your gaming and running apps in any way. NTSF is a more secure way to go.

-CHris

[Guest LouCypher]

I think that Windows 2000 ran signifigantly faster for me once I switched from FAT32 -> NTFS. Ever since I've ran NTFS on the Windows boot drive and I like it alot.

It's also nice being able to restrict *MY* access to certain files or directories to keep rogue programs from modifying them or filling up my hard drive with CRAP (like TimeSink's TSADBOT.EXE spyware).

[LS_Dragons]

Here are some "independant" opinions (from some pretty respected puter reviewers) regsrding speed and FAT32 v NTFS:

Quoted from the LangaList newsletter (recommended):

1) XP Speed Issues

In "Here Comes XP" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-10-22.htm#2 ) we discussed some preliminary test results and user feedback that suggested that XP can be significantly slower than 2K or 9x. Many readers responded--- some affirmatively, others not. As is usual with most discussions of speed, individual test results are hugely dependent on the specifics of how each system is set up, and exactly what's being tested.

The official Microsoft screed on Windows XP Performance is at:

ht*p://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/evaluate/xpperf.asp

Naturally, it stresses the positives.

A more independent source, Dave Methvin (one of the authors of the PC Pitstop test suite h*tp://www.pcpitstop.com ), points to a very non-mysterious explanation for some of the negative speed measurements:

Hey Fred, I saw the item about someone who visited PC Pitstop and was wondering about their disk performance under XP. The cause is NTFS. XP/2000 is better at disk cache management than 9x/Me, which generally translates to good scores on application benchmarks (on either FAT32 or NTFS) since apps do a lot more reading than writing. However, NTFS is definitely slower on creating and writing files. I've converted to XP with FAT32 on my primary system and the performance is comparable with 9x.

Here's a second source:

h*tp://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,14926,00.asp

"But Windows 2000 doesn't always outrun Windows 98. Sometimes the OSs' differing file systems affect the results. We tested each operating system using its default native file system--FAT32 for Windows 98, and NTFS for Windows 2000. Previous PC World tests have indicated that NTFS is far slower than FAT32, due to additional file security and logging overhead. The Search and Replace test in Word corroborated this result Both Windows 2000 and NT 4.0 (which by default also uses NTFS) took a dramatically longer time than Windows 98 SE to complete the task."

Thanks, Dave!

Hope this helps -- LS