Guest Robert S Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very inconvenient to have to back this drive up. Is it reasonably safe to use the "convert" command on this disk? I've done a practice run on another drive on my PC without any problems. BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive.
Guest Pegasus \(MVP\) Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? "Robert S" <robert.spam.me.senseless@gmail.com> wrote in message news:eY6gbqP1HHA.5980@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... > I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. > Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very inconvenient > to have to back this drive up. Is it reasonably safe to use the "convert" > command on this disk? I've done a practice run on another drive on my PC > without any problems. > > BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive. I have never heard of any problems with the convert command. On the other hand I think that you're playing a dangerous game. Even though you don't store any critical data on this drive, if the files are important then you should back them up. Disk drives are cheap. There are several ways in which you could lose your data, e.g. user error, file system corruption, disk failure, theft, fire, electrical damage.
Guest Steve Parry [MVP] Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? In news:eY6gbqP1HHA.5980@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl, Robert S <robert.spam.me.senseless@gmail.com> wibbled > I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. > Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very > inconvenient to have to back this drive up. Is it reasonably safe to > use the "convert" command on this disk? I've done a practice run on > another drive on my PC without any problems. > > BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive. I've never had a problem using this command ... .no doubt someone has :) I've converted hundreds, if not thousands of drives and all completed successfully, so in my experience I'd say it is reliable. Obviously power cuts are not a good thing :) -- Steve Parry MCP MVP http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk
Guest Robert S Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? It was rather ugly actually. "convert" would not convert large backup files and ISO images. I had to either delete these or temporarily place them onto another drive and copy them back when the format was changed. chkdsk revealed a few problems as well. Hopefully these problems won't occur now that the drive is NTFS. I don't think I've lost anything crucial however.
Guest John John Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? Robert S wrote: > I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. > Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very > inconvenient to have to back this drive up. Would it would be even more inconvenient to lose all the files? If you don't mind losing all the files if something goes bad then don't bother with a backup... Is it reasonably safe to > use the "convert" command on this disk? I've done a practice run on > another drive on my PC without any problems. 99.999% of the time everything goes well and the conversion is flawless. In the .001% of times when things go wrong the results lead to catastrophic data loss. Do you have a UPS on the system? A simple power failure or power flicker during this operation will lead to the loss of all your files. > BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive. I should hope not! John
Guest Bogey Man Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? "Robert S" <robert.spam.me.senseless@gmail.com> wrote in message news:eY6gbqP1HHA.5980@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... > I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. > Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very inconvenient > to have to back this drive up. Is it reasonably safe to use the "convert" > command on this disk? I've done a practice run on another drive on my PC > without any problems. > > BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive. Whether or not you are converting your drive, backing it up is a prudent idea. Is the inconvenience of replacing the data less than the inconvenience of backing it up? Only you can decide.
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:45:20 +1000, Robert S <robert.spam.me.senseless@gmail.com> wrote: > I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. > Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very > inconvenient to have to back this drive up. Is it reasonably safe to > use the "convert" command on this disk? I've done a practice run on > another drive on my PC without any problems. > > BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive. Reasonably safe? Yes. Completely safe? No. Conversion is a big step, affecting everything on your drive. When you take such a big step, no matter how unlikely, it is always possible that something (a power failure while it's in progress, for example) could go wrong. For that reason, it's prudent to make sure you have a backup of anything you can't afford to lose before beginning. By the way, before you convert, read http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm because there's an issue regarding cluster size that isn't obvious. -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest Bruce Chambers Posted August 3, 2007 Posted August 3, 2007 Re: How safe is the "convert" command? Robert S wrote: > I'd like to convert a 300G Maxtor OneTouch drive from FAT32 to NTFS. > Because of the amount of data that I've got it would be very > inconvenient to have to back this drive up. Is it reasonably safe to > use the "convert" command on this disk? I've done a practice run on > another drive on my PC without any problems. > > BTW I don't have any life-or-death commercial data on this drive. You can safely convert your current hard drive to NTFS whenever desired, without having to format the partition and reinstall everything. As always when performing any serious changes, back up any important data before proceeding, just in case. A little advance preparation is also strongly recommended, so you can avoid any performance hits caused by the default cluster size: Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
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