TechTips: Convert a FAT Drive to NTFS
Converting FAT to FAT32
The first thing you will want to do is plug in your USB drive or other drive that you want to convert to NTFS. Once it is plugged in, and you can see it in your "My computer" then you will want to right click on the drive and choose properties. Under the general tab you will see what type of file system the drive has; if your drive is FAT then we need to format the drive to FAT32 so we can then change it to NTFS. If your drive is already FAT32 skip to the next step Converting FAT32 to NTFS.
Right Click on the drive
Choose Format
Under File System choose FAT32
Check Quick Format
Click Start
Windows will format the drive into the FAT32 style; this could take some time depending on the size of the drive you are formatting. My 8GB thumb drive took about a minute. Once it is formatted to FAT32 next we will format it to NTFS.
Converting FAT32 to NTFS
Now we will want to convert the FAT32 drive into NTFS. To do this we need to run a command line format that will convert the file system for us.
Go to Start>>Run
Type CMD
Type CONVERT E: /FS:NTFS ("E:" represents the USB or drive you are changing you letter might be different please make sure you have the correct drive letter)
Hit Enter
Windows will convert the file system (again depending on the drive size it might take a little while)
Once it is done you can type exit and hit enter.
Now you are done you can go to "My computer" and right click on the drive choose properties and in the General tab it should show the File System as NTFS. You should also notice there are several more tabs now that your drive is formatted as a NTFS drive. That is all there is to it pretty simple way to format a drive to NTFS from FAT or FAT32.
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1 Comments
Post a CommentThanks your advice on changing from FAT32 to NTFS on my Patriot XT worked a treat your a star.