Converting a FAT/FAT32 volume to NTFS

Most of the Windows uses are still using FAT/FAT32 file system. That’s because they are unaware of the limitations of FAT/FAT32 and features of the NTFS. For a short detail on this, you can refer to my previous post "NTFS Vs FAT and FAT32".

So, if you have your hard-drive volumes in FAT/FAT32, I am providing this piece of command to covert your FAT/FAT32 volume to NTFS. This is a very safe conversion and I assure that no data of yours will be lost.

But, Beware!!! , once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS, you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32. You will need to reformat the drive or partition which will erase all data including programs and personal files on the partition. Of course, there are other several third-party softwares that can still change your volume back to FAT or FAT32 without formatting the hard-drive (like Partition Magic, Boot Magic, etc), but I don’t know how much reliable these s/ws are?

Anyways, lets skip the gossip and come to the point.

1. Open command prompt (start -> rum -> cmd)
2. type the following command - convert drive_letter: /fs:NTFS (e.g. convert D: /fs:ntfs)
3. There are different switched available in the convert command. To view detail of all these switches, in the command prompt …type convert /? and enter.