Help..trying to convert hd from fat32 to ntfs

[persuazion1]

Hey everybody. Well I just bought a Western Digital mybook external hd.Its 120 gb and when I go to convert it, it it asking for the partition size in mb with a minimum of 8 and a max of 114471. What number do I put in to continue with the conversion.Thanks for any help...

[Raptor]

Why do you not simply reformat it as NTFS?

[persuazion1]

I thought thats what I was doing...Im following these instructions

"Right-click My Computer icon on your desktop and choose "manage" from the drop down menu. Or you can right click My Computer from your Start Menu can choose manage. This opens your "Computer Management" window.

Under Storage, click Disk Management. It may take a few moments for the information to appear.

Right-click on the drive you are changing (make sure it is the right drive), and choose "Delete Partition".

Click Yes on the prompt. You will get a warning that all data will be lost, so double check and make sure you have selected the correct drive, and be sure you backed it up if you are not working with a brand new external drive!

Next, you will see unallocated space for the drive you are changing in the lower right window. Right-click on unallocated space and a menu of available options will appear.

Choose "New Partition" and the "New Partition Wizard" will appear. Click Next. Then Next again.

Choose partition size, click next.

Leave "Assign the following drive letter" selected and click next.

Under "Format this Partition" choose NTFS. Select Perform a quick format and click Next.

Click Finish. You will see that the drive is formatting and percentage complete. If it is a large drive, it may take a few minutes. If it is a drive that has information on it, plan on an even longer time to finish.  Congrats! You are done. Now go fill it up "

But when I get the the partition size I have no idea what to put???

[ale52]

The old way:

To convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt
1.Open a command prompt window.
2.In the command prompt window, type
convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

[highlight]This will convert the entire drive to NTFS[/highlight]

Alan <><  

[Neil]

Converting will keep the current data on the hard disk, but a fresh format will decrease the chances of problems, which is what you are trying to do.

I suggest you enter in the maximum partition size, unless you want to divide the harddisk into more than one partition.

[persuazion1]

I already deleted the partition and I had only put about 3 gigs on there.I copyed it all back to my regular hd before I deleted it all. So I should put the max on there?....its 111 gb. Why is it only that much when I have a 120gb hd?

[Demache]

I already deleted the partition and I had only put about 3 gigs on there.I copyed it all back to my regular hd before I deleted it all. So I should put the max on there?....its 111 gb. Why is it only that much when I have a 120gb hd?

The disk may have a hidden partition that is used for other stuff on the hard drive (wild guess). Most hard drives are smaller than the actaully claim they are.
Ex. : My internal HD is supposed to be 40GB but actaully only has 37.9 GB as total amount. Basically the larger the hard drive, the more memory is chunked off of it. Its a kind of a compicated topic.

[Rob Pomeroy]

its 111 gb. Why is it only that much when I have a 120gb hd?

It's a stupidoty about the way hard drive sizes are advertised.  For reasons connected to binary, 1KB = 1,024 bytes (not 1,000); 1MB = 1,024 KB, 1GB = 1,024 MB.  Hard drive companies however don't understand binary.  So when your hard drive company says 1GB, they actually mean 120,000,000,000 bytes.  Divide that by 1,024 three times, and you arrive at 111GB (111 x 1024 * 1024 * 1024 is approximately 120,000,000,000).

For the curious, 1,024 is 10,000,000,000 in binary.

[persuazion1]

Ok guys thanks for the help!!!....1 more qustion.. should I set the hd as a primary partition or extended?

[LegoLas]

extended, but if u need to run 2 HD , then u should set it as primary and the other one as slave.
anyway, wait for rob's response. he's pro in it.

[Neil]

I thought you set the first partion to a harddrive always to primary? But like said Rob's the expert here...

[Raptor]

extended, but if u need to run 2 HD , then u should set it as primary and the other one as slave.
anyway, wait for rob's response. he's pro in it.

Slave and Master is not related to Primary and Extended.

Create a primairy partition if you want to use all of the disk space at once and use extended if you want to divide it into smaller parts.

[LegoLas]

ups...  :-/
thanks, raptor.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Ok guys thanks for the help!!!....1 more qustion.. should I set the hd as a primary partition or extended?

Thanks everyone for the vote of confidence, but I wouldn't claim to be an expert in this department.  What I DO recall is that you don't generally need to worry about extended partitions until you have at least four partitions on the same hard drive.  Then, with certain filesystems it becomes necessary to add a fifth extended partition into which you can then add further partitions.  I imagine it's the kind of short-sightedness that has been cleared up with the SATA specification, but I'm not really a hardware guy and have yet to play with a SATA or even a SCSI drive.

[panboy]

Rob ... you've never play with SCSI... And you call your self an Egghead

Whit todays FAT systems it pretty much Primary Partitions all the Way, the days of the Extended dos partition are behind us (YaY!)

[Rob Pomeroy]

Rob ... you've never play with SCSI... And you call your self an Egghead

It wasn't MY idea!  

Whit todays FAT systems it pretty much Primary Partitions all the Way, the days of the Extended dos partition are behind us (YaY!)

Not if you're creating a decent Linux server.

[panboy]

You always have a trump card dont you rob, but i'ed like to see your Linux server play Battle Field 2146!

Realy i do i want that game so bad my toes fell off

[Neil]

They should fix the bugs in their current game before starting a new one.

[panboy]

Its EA theres a law in that company that set minimum amount of Bugs, and it some where in treble figures.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Realy i do i want that game so bad my toes fell off

It's true, folks; he posted them to me to prove it.


Gross boy.

[Raptor]

The game does indeed have a lot of bugs, but its the best online game out there so far if you ask me. If any company manages to bring out a  Battlefield type of game with better support and more stability I'd immediatly go out and buy it. But I refuse to pay a montlhy subscription.