formatting external hard drive for mac or windows without losing data

Formatting External Hard Drive Or Windows Without Losing Data Zip Creates Files

This is really bad for performance especially with larger file sizes.

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Even though is has plenty of space for me to put the file on it, it says I cant put it there because there isnt enough disc space (it is formatted with FAT32, which can have files a maximum of 4GB- this is the reason why it is) I believe I had this same problem once before, but I dont remember how I solved it.

If I reformat the drive as NTFS, I believe it will no longer be able to a hold a maximum of 2TBs of storage.

The drive is FAT32 right now, maybe what I did was make it an NTFS partition then convert back to FAT32.

In any event, I need to make it an NTFS partition so I can put this file (I plan to put many more videotapes on it as well) on it.

I cant transfer all of the data off the drive to reformat it because I dont have another hard drive that will hold all 668 Gigs of data I currently have on the drive.

I definitely dont want to lose everything (or ideally- anything) I have on that drive.

To convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt Open Command Prompt.

In the command prompt window, type convert driveletter: fs:ntfs For example, typing convert D: fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format.

Notes To open command prompt, click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.

You can convert FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS with this command.

About the only one I saw work without any problems was Windows 95 going from FAT16 to FAT32.

Im tempted to discuss the resizing of partitions, and then adding another partition to copy everything over.

What you can do is shrink the FAT32 partition to as small as possible, also making sure you use a good program to defragment the partition contents to make shrinking as effective as possible.

Finally, with the contents copied over you just delete the FAT32 partition, and expand the NTFS partition to span the entire disk (this part.

Ive shrunk and expanded NTFS partitions natively within Windows Vista7, however it doesnt work behind the partition, only after it.

Using a third party application to make such modifications before a partition could have consequences.

I would recommend that you find somebody else who has enough storage for you to borrow, copy over everything, format the whole thing, and copy the files back over.

I will also mention that you can use something called split archives.

Formatting External Hard Drive Or Windows Without Losing Data Zip Creates Files

This is when a program like 7zip creates files that split the contents across multiple files, putting it below the file size limitation.

However to access the file you may have to be patient, as you would have to either extract the file(s) to access the files, or to open from within the archive might use a fair bit of temporary storage.

The other problem with using Convert is that it will use the original cluster size of the current file system.

That is usually 512 bytes for FAT instead of the 4K that NTFS uses.

Formatting External Hard Drive For Mac Or Windows Without Losing Data