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NTFS to FAT32

S

Sharpe

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 6, 2004
Messages
82
I need to change an NTFS drive to a FAT32 file system. It had Win XP, but now I want to run Win 98 on it. All I need to do is remove the partition. It is in a Win XP Pro computer right now. When I right click on the drive, it doesn’t give me the option to change it to FAT32 like I thought it did.
 
The conversion tool only goes one way; unless there's a 3rd party tool to do it, you're pretty much stuck copying the data to another device, formatting & moving it back.
 
can we ask why you are going from xp to windows 98?

those who dont like xp generally choose windows 2000
 
The HDD came out of a newer laptop, an Inspiron 8100. It was going in an old laptop made in 1999. I can't remember what kind of CPU it had. I think it had 32MB RAM. It wasn't my laptop. It was a cutomer's who was used to Win98 in the first place.
 
Since you're going to use Windows 98 ... why not just fdisk the drive ...
 
Sharpe said:
Because FDISK won't remove NTFS.
Click to expand...


Yes it will....


Tell FDisk you want to remove a NON-DOS partition. It will allow you to delete the NTFS partition then.

FDisk shows all non-FAT/FAT32 partitions as NON-DOS partitions.
 
FDISK will remove everything.. Just delete the partitions.. remake your Partition.. format.

Or use a WinXP CD.. boot from it. Select the drive you want to change back to FAT.. delete the partition.. recreate.. format in FAT. Might be able to just format without deleting the partition and remaking. I have always deleted the partition if I am formatting on a drive with only one partition.
 
Fdisk is not able to remove every NTFS partition, it usually can (over 90% of the time) but there are NTFS partitions that it can not delete.

This is why Microsoft started providing Delpart.exe.

==>Lazn
 
Lazn_Work said:
Fdisk is not able to remove every NTFS partition, it usually can (over 90% of the time) but there are NTFS partitions that it can not delete.

This is why Microsoft started providing Delpart.exe.

==>Lazn
Click to expand...


I have never seen a partition that can't be deleted by fdisk ... :confused:

I believe option 4 ... delete non-dos partitions
 
primea said:
I have never seen a partition that can't be deleted by fdisk ... :confused:

I believe option 4 ... delete non-dos partitions
Click to expand...

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/Q261/4/73.ASP&NoWebContent=1
"In addition, Fdisk cannot delete partitions that have descriptors outside of the allowed area 1BEh-1FDh. Also, Fdisk cannot delete a non-MS-DOS logical drive in an extended partition. "

If you have a logical NTFS drive in an extended partition, Fdisk can not delete it. If it is a primary partition, Then yes, you are right it can delete NTFS partitions.

As I said at first, over 90% of the time, Fdisk has no problem deleting Non-Dos partions, but sometimes it can't.

==>Lazn
 
You could try formatting the Master Boot Record by doing an FDISK /MBR and then running fdisk to repartition your drives.
 
fdisk cant delete anything past the fat32 limit i think. so if you have a partiton starting outside that limit, id ont think its possible.
 
I have tried Delpart.exe, I thought that once you delete the NTFS partition, you pretty well have deleted a good partition that has data on it. And he was just asking for a way to convert the partition back to fat32 not to delete it.

Please tell me am I looking at this right. Delpart= delete partition
 
Scorpionjwp said:
I have tried Delpart.exe, I thought that once you delete the NTFS partition, you pretty well have deleted a good partition that has data on it. And he was just asking for a way to convert the partition back to fat32 not to delete it.

Please tell me am I looking at this right. Delpart= delete partition
Click to expand...

Yes it does delete the partition, but if you look at his responses, he just needed a new install, not to save the data.

==>Lazn
 
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