NTFS to FAT32 to NTFS

Panda Man

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 4, 2005
Messages
300
I'm trying to install linux, and needed a FAT32 partition that i could write to. So i set aside a 5 gig partition right next to the document partition on my hard disk. However, I was complete dumbass and selected the wrong partition to be converted to FAT32. Yea, I was stupid enough to not double check what i was converting. I need to be flamed. When i realized my mistake, i knew it was too late to stop it otherwise i would mess it up for good. Anyways, some data got deleted and all of the filenames are changed because of the conversion. My question - is it possible to reverse the conversion back to NTFS with any/all of the original data intact? If not... you can just flame me i guess =O
 
Actually, I used partition magic to get it to FAT32 in the first place... Its Powerquest's though, 8.0... Would it be possible to recover the drive using the current one?
 
Panda Man said:
I'm trying to install linux, and needed a FAT32 partition that i could write to. So i set aside a 5 gig partition right next to the document partition on my hard disk. However, I was complete dumbass and selected the wrong partition to be converted to FAT32. Yea, I was stupid enough to not double check what i was converting. I need to be flamed. When i realized my mistake, i knew it was too late to stop it otherwise i would mess it up for good. Anyways, some data got deleted and all of the filenames are changed because of the conversion. My question - is it possible to reverse the conversion back to NTFS with any/all of the original data intact? If not... you can just flame me i guess =O

really no 100% way to get the data back. i know there are several programs out there that may be able to recover data, but it is not guaranteed.
 
Actually, recovery of the data itself is not my #1 priority. I just need it to not only get reversed back to NTFS, but also recover the filenames, the conversion shortened them all and this will more than likely mess all my other proggies up.
 
Panda Man said:
Actually, recovery of the data itself is not my #1 priority. I just need it to not only get reversed back to NTFS, but also recover the filenames, the conversion shortened them all and this will more than likely mess all my other proggies up.

go into the command prompt

Convert Volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity] [/X]

*edited to make the command precise*

also, the way fat reads longer folder names, it converts it to either 6 or 8 characters (cant remember off the top of my head anymore) and does ~1, but it is the same. fat just cant read the entire folder like ntfs can. but i've never actually done this, MS says this is the way to do it, but i have no first hand knowledge if it works or not.
 
the conversion is easy enough, you will have to hand edit the truncated file names and folders though, renaming them. your registry will have the information of what the names were before being truncated.

luckily it is only a 5gig partition and the data is not lost just changed to FAT32 and its limitations, it could have been worse.
 
xxGriff said:
the conversion is easy enough, you will have to hand edit the truncated file names and folders though, renaming them. your registry will have the information of what the names were before being truncated.

luckily it is only a 5gig partition and the data is not lost just changed to FAT32 and its limitations, it could have been worse.
Indeed. Actually, when i tried to convert it back it said there were errors the first time i tried. I'll protias' way. Thanks for the info!

One last thing - if the original names are stored in the registry, would it be possible to just use a system restore to restore them? after re-converting them of course.
 
it is possible, but would depend on when/if you have a restore point that matches at the point in time you wish to restore to.

if you have errors on the partition, run chkdsk /f to repair them, and then convert.
 
xxGriff said:
it is possible, but would depend on when/if you have a restore point that matches at the point in time you wish to restore to.

if you have errors on the partition, run chkdsk /f to repair them, and then convert.
Hmm, I'll give it a shot. Thanks alot for the info, I was afraid i may have just messed it up for good.

Thanks to everyone that helped me out!

edit - mkay, i didn't run chkdsk before b/c i was afraid of data loss. Guess it's not a problem at this point. No data loss, just a bunch more stuff renamed. Converted back successfully, will not try to recover filenames.

EDIT 2 - system restore didn't work, I'm just going to have to rename them all manually. Thanks for the help again!
 
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