Changing Partitions: NTFS -> FAT. (SuSE 9.0)

rhawi · 06-19-2004, 10:43 AM

So, here is the thing...

I had a partition with a lot amount of data in NTFS (WinXP) and I didn't backup the files and the windows, I don't know why, just stop working. That's ok but my problem is: I have a LOT of information and free space in my NTFS partition and I would like to make this partition as FAT32, is there a possible way to doing this without lose data ? I'm afraid i can't do it... OR... I could try to write in the NTFS system is it possible, I mean safe ?

Thanks a lot.

Hockney Twang · 06-19-2004, 11:04 AM

I'm worrying myself over the exact same issue! I was just about to copy the entire contents of the partition to a folder on my linux partition, then reformat the partition as FAT32 and copy the files back. But it occurred to me that I'm more than likely to break something that way, so I decided only to do it if I became desperate to gain write access to my windows partition via Linux. Until I get to that point, I'm open to suggestion too.

bruno buys · 06-19-2004, 02:18 PM

Linux read access to ntfs is experimental and not recommended. Paragon software has linux drivers to access read-write to ntfs but they are comercial (paid) and - i'm not sure - not-gpl.

Instead, you should convert a ntfs partition to fat32 using win's native tools. To my knowledge, it can be done safetly.

Backing up everything important before is a gold rule of partition-related operations.