NTFS, anyone???

Dellwood · 1st September 2002, 2:36 PM

I just went out and bought a new HDD to upgrade my storage space a little, and what I want to do with it is to replace one of my existing drives with it.

However my existing drives are FAT32, (from a long line of upgrading from win98!) and I want the useful features of NTFS, so I'm going to back up everything onto the new drive, and re-partition everything to NTFS.

What I'm worried about is weather partitioning the new drive as NTFS and backing up everything important on to it would be a good idea. It would certanly be the easiest way of doing things. However, I'm not entirely sure weather the new installation of windows will recognise my new drive, seeing as I partitioned it and everything under this old installation.

Fraggle · 1st September 2002, 2:56 PM

yeah, if u format the new drive as ntfs and copy everything from the fat32 drive to the ntfs one it should be fine

...i guess that's what u're wanting to do?

i guess win2k/xp is installed already?

otherwise, you'll only be able to format the new one as fat32, then convert after installing 2k/xp 'cos 95/98/se won't be able to read the ntfs partitions

if u can get ur hands on a program called partition magic (currently up to ver 7.0) it will make life really easy...will convert partitions on the fly and also adjust free space, drive letters etc.

very nifty

only problem u may run into is the drive letters...if they mismatch after copying the files across then some stuff might not run correctly...i think computer management lets u change drive letters too, but i've always used partition magic which has a wizard to change registry entries etc. to different drive letters

g-l!

Dellwood · 1st September 2002, 3:23 PM

Hrmm.. interesting. I was just planning on copying everything of importance over to the new NTFS drive and repartitioning and formatting the old ones as NTFS too.

The thing I was worried about was weather the new installation of win2k will recognise the new NTFS drive. I mean, NTFS doesn't have anything built into it which prevents it from being recognised locally by anything other then the original install which created it does it?

Fraggle · 1st September 2002, 5:11 PM

hmm...r u copying the o/s partition too?

...some people have problems getting that to work...i've tried it once doing a "copy partition" in partition magic, then just renaming the drive letters & it worked no problems for met

i have heard that if u change motherboards, the o/s needs to be reinstalled...but i've never done it, nor do i fully understand why...something to do with drivers or other i guess/was told

if u mean u're formatting a drive ntfs, then moving it to another computer with 2k/xp, that should be fine...i've shared my mp3 hd with my old housemate by just pulling it out & installing it into his computer then leeching the mp3s off it onto one of his drives

unless u have encrypted files, should be a-okay...if u have encrypted files REMOVE IT!!!

...found out the hard way...had some excel worksheets encrypted...reinstalled windows...oops!!!...access DENIED!

Dellwood · 1st September 2002, 5:23 PM

Cool, thanks for that info.

What I meant was the equivelant of pulling the hard drive out and whacking it into another machine. I'm just going to do a fresh install on the new drive with win2k, so I was wondering if the installation program would pick it up.

Anyway, I think it will work fine. (well, I hope it will work fine anyway!)

Fraggle · 1st September 2002, 10:21 PM

hmm prolly a bit late now...but yeah, i think when u install, it should ask whether u want to format the drive or not

should be allowed to choose fat32 or ntfs, so just go from there

Myne_h · 2nd September 2002, 2:15 PM

may be too late but it is just as easy to type in the run box of xp

convert X: /fs:ntfs

X=drive letter

this'll convert the partition to ntfs on next reboot - you dont have to back it up though it is recommended

Dellwood · 2nd September 2002, 9:49 PM

After the long and complex upgrading process, which has taken the best part of two days, my system is up and running again!

I had a few problems with the drive letters, because when I formatted the drive under the old installation, it was "G" drive, and when I re-installed again, it appeared still as G drive, even though it was connected to the primary master IDE port!

Anyway, after some registry fiddling, and a restart later, it popped up with a dialogue box upon logging in, saying that the paging file was stuffed and to fix it by following some proceedure. However, when you clicked ok to get rid of the box, it logged out for me. That was fine, except for the fact that it would do the same thing again when i logged in again, effectively preventing me from following the nicely outlined proceedure for fixing the paging file problem.

Eventually, after exhausting all possibilities, I threw in the installation disc for win2k and kept pressing "r" on the keyboard with vindiction until the system decided to work properly. (the "r" key makes it repair the installation by the way)

A restart later, and a lot of sitting around waiting for the computer to tick over, and I was back to square one again with a fresh install of windows. However this time my drives were nice.

Now, to install everything else again!

Thanks for the advice guys, it was assuring to know that I wasn't going to loose my 18 gigs of backed up data with one little mistake!

aXis · 3rd September 2002, 5:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dellwood
I had a few problems with the drive letters, because when I formatted the drive under the old installation, it was "G" drive, and when I re-installed again, it appeared still as G drive, even though it was connected to the primary master IDE port!

Yes, ive suffered that and it is a bitch.

you have to delete the drive signatures (in the registry), then copy the data, then reboot on the new drive.

Since the signatures are missing, it will then see it as C drive.

Dellwood · 3rd September 2002, 10:13 PM

yeah, that's it..

but you know the funny thing? I was looking around in the help file for the disk management service, and browsed past something which mentioned preparing the hard drive to move to another machine.. but I skipped it because I was looking for something else!

If I had of read that then I would've had HALF the bloody troubles I had installing it!

Anyway, I just discovered the reason for my upgrading the hard drive, (the drive in the linux box was dead) wasn't the problem. (the controller the linux box is dodgy, or something!) so I didn't even have to upgrade it in the first place!

but then, it probably was good that I did.. I got to format my drive, which it needed and the drive in the linux box wasn't very large, so I'd need to upgrade it at some stage anyway.

Now I need to figure out what's going on with the linux box!

Dr Dremel · 3rd September 2002, 10:16 PM

NEVER use the convert command from inside XP the cluster size will blow out to 64kg and slow it all up as against 4kb for normal NTFS file system, fat 32 is 32kb.

If you want to use XP and NTFS start with clean or new drives and let XP do it for you.

Less trouble and in the long run quicker.

Dellwood · 3rd September 2002, 10:26 PM

I'm using the disk management service in windows 2000, not xp.

I'm installing 2000 because I often keep this maching running for months at a time without a reboot, and I've heard xp gets flakey after keeping it running for a long time without a reboot. I figure it's better not to chance an unstable system.

KyocEr@~* · 4th September 2002, 10:15 AM

I used NTFS and converted from FAT32, it works flawlessly... defrag is much faster too! <-- sweet as

Dellwood · 4th September 2002, 11:03 AM

I like the file system level security and encryption and stuff. Easier to manage then the linux ext3 file security things, although more confusing at times!

Dr Dremel · 4th September 2002, 11:46 AM

I didn't say it wouldn't work, have a look at what the cluster size is now.

It will be 64kb when it should be 4kb,

Performance will decrease accordingly.

1st September 2002, 2:36 PM	#1
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	NTFS, anyone??? I just went out and bought a new HDD to upgrade my storage space a little, and what I want to do with it is to replace one of my existing drives with it. However my existing drives are FAT32, (from a long line of upgrading from win98!) and I want the useful features of NTFS, so I'm going to back up everything onto the new drive, and re-partition everything to NTFS. What I'm worried about is weather partitioning the new drive as NTFS and backing up everything important on to it would be a good idea. It would certanly be the easiest way of doing things. However, I'm not entirely sure weather the new installation of windows will recognise my new drive, seeing as I partitioned it and everything under this old installation. __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

1st September 2002, 2:56 PM	#2
Fraggle Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,168	yeah, if u format the new drive as ntfs and copy everything from the fat32 drive to the ntfs one it should be fine ...i guess that's what u're wanting to do? i guess win2k/xp is installed already? otherwise, you'll only be able to format the new one as fat32, then convert after installing 2k/xp 'cos 95/98/se won't be able to read the ntfs partitions if u can get ur hands on a program called partition magic (currently up to ver 7.0) it will make life really easy...will convert partitions on the fly and also adjust free space, drive letters etc. very nifty only problem u may run into is the drive letters...if they mismatch after copying the files across then some stuff might not run correctly...i think computer management lets u change drive letters too, but i've always used partition magic which has a wizard to change registry entries etc. to different drive letters g-l! __________________ GODZILLA :: i7 960 :: Rampage III Extreme :: 12GB Dominator GT :: HX1000 :: U2711 :: GTX 580 Lightning XE :: X-Fi Titanium Pro GUNDAM :: i7 960 :: Rampage III Extreme :: 24GB Vengeance :: HX850 :: U2311H x2 :: GTX 280 XXX :: X-Fi XtremeMusic DOMOKUN :: i5 2500K :: P8P67 LE :: 16GB G.Skill NT :: X-560 :: KDL55HX800 :: HD 6670 :: Xonar HDAV1.3

1st September 2002, 3:23 PM	#3
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	Hrmm.. interesting. I was just planning on copying everything of importance over to the new NTFS drive and repartitioning and formatting the old ones as NTFS too. The thing I was worried about was weather the new installation of win2k will recognise the new NTFS drive. I mean, NTFS doesn't have anything built into it which prevents it from being recognised locally by anything other then the original install which created it does it? __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

1st September 2002, 5:11 PM	#4
Fraggle Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,168	hmm...r u copying the o/s partition too? ...some people have problems getting that to work...i've tried it once doing a "copy partition" in partition magic, then just renaming the drive letters & it worked no problems for met i have heard that if u change motherboards, the o/s needs to be reinstalled...but i've never done it, nor do i fully understand why...something to do with drivers or other i guess/was told if u mean u're formatting a drive ntfs, then moving it to another computer with 2k/xp, that should be fine...i've shared my mp3 hd with my old housemate by just pulling it out & installing it into his computer then leeching the mp3s off it onto one of his drives unless u have encrypted files, should be a-okay...if u have encrypted files REMOVE IT!!! ...found out the hard way...had some excel worksheets encrypted...reinstalled windows...oops!!!...access DENIED! __________________ GODZILLA :: i7 960 :: Rampage III Extreme :: 12GB Dominator GT :: HX1000 :: U2711 :: GTX 580 Lightning XE :: X-Fi Titanium Pro GUNDAM :: i7 960 :: Rampage III Extreme :: 24GB Vengeance :: HX850 :: U2311H x2 :: GTX 280 XXX :: X-Fi XtremeMusic DOMOKUN :: i5 2500K :: P8P67 LE :: 16GB G.Skill NT :: X-560 :: KDL55HX800 :: HD 6670 :: Xonar HDAV1.3

1st September 2002, 5:23 PM	#5
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	Cool, thanks for that info. What I meant was the equivelant of pulling the hard drive out and whacking it into another machine. I'm just going to do a fresh install on the new drive with win2k, so I was wondering if the installation program would pick it up. Anyway, I think it will work fine. (well, I hope it will work fine anyway!) __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

1st September 2002, 10:21 PM	#6
Fraggle Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,168	hmm prolly a bit late now...but yeah, i think when u install, it should ask whether u want to format the drive or not should be allowed to choose fat32 or ntfs, so just go from there __________________ GODZILLA :: i7 960 :: Rampage III Extreme :: 12GB Dominator GT :: HX1000 :: U2711 :: GTX 580 Lightning XE :: X-Fi Titanium Pro GUNDAM :: i7 960 :: Rampage III Extreme :: 24GB Vengeance :: HX850 :: U2311H x2 :: GTX 280 XXX :: X-Fi XtremeMusic DOMOKUN :: i5 2500K :: P8P67 LE :: 16GB G.Skill NT :: X-560 :: KDL55HX800 :: HD 6670 :: Xonar HDAV1.3

2nd September 2002, 2:15 PM	#7
Myne_h Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5,551	may be too late but it is just as easy to type in the run box of xp convert X: /fs:ntfs X=drive letter this'll convert the partition to ntfs on next reboot - you dont have to back it up though it is recommended

2nd September 2002, 9:49 PM	#8
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	After the long and complex upgrading process, which has taken the best part of two days, my system is up and running again! I had a few problems with the drive letters, because when I formatted the drive under the old installation, it was "G" drive, and when I re-installed again, it appeared still as G drive, even though it was connected to the primary master IDE port! Anyway, after some registry fiddling, and a restart later, it popped up with a dialogue box upon logging in, saying that the paging file was stuffed and to fix it by following some proceedure. However, when you clicked ok to get rid of the box, it logged out for me. That was fine, except for the fact that it would do the same thing again when i logged in again, effectively preventing me from following the nicely outlined proceedure for fixing the paging file problem. Eventually, after exhausting all possibilities, I threw in the installation disc for win2k and kept pressing "r" on the keyboard with vindiction until the system decided to work properly. (the "r" key makes it repair the installation by the way) A restart later, and a lot of sitting around waiting for the computer to tick over, and I was back to square one again with a fresh install of windows. However this time my drives were nice. Now, to install everything else again! Thanks for the advice guys, it was assuring to know that I wasn't going to loose my 18 gigs of backed up data with one little mistake! __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

3rd September 2002, 10:13 PM	#10
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	yeah, that's it.. but you know the funny thing? I was looking around in the help file for the disk management service, and browsed past something which mentioned preparing the hard drive to move to another machine.. but I skipped it because I was looking for something else! If I had of read that then I would've had HALF the bloody troubles I had installing it! Anyway, I just discovered the reason for my upgrading the hard drive, (the drive in the linux box was dead) wasn't the problem. (the controller the linux box is dodgy, or something!) so I didn't even have to upgrade it in the first place! but then, it probably was good that I did.. I got to format my drive, which it needed and the drive in the linux box wasn't very large, so I'd need to upgrade it at some stage anyway. Now I need to figure out what's going on with the linux box! __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

3rd September 2002, 10:16 PM	#11
Dr Dremel Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: On An Island Somewhere Posts: 805	NEVER use the convert command from inside XP the cluster size will blow out to 64kg and slow it all up as against 4kb for normal NTFS file system, fat 32 is 32kb. If you want to use XP and NTFS start with clean or new drives and let XP do it for you. Less trouble and in the long run quicker.

3rd September 2002, 10:26 PM	#12
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	I'm using the disk management service in windows 2000, not xp. I'm installing 2000 because I often keep this maching running for months at a time without a reboot, and I've heard xp gets flakey after keeping it running for a long time without a reboot. I figure it's better not to chance an unstable system. __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

4th September 2002, 10:15 AM	#13
KyocEr@~* On A Sabbatical Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Upper East Coast Park Posts: 3,971	I used NTFS and converted from FAT32, it works flawlessly... defrag is much faster too! <-- sweet as __________________ From: KyocEr@~* - The Er@ is nigh... Tally: 340+ Private Trades \| Transaction on 19/11/2010: fenerli \| Canon Ixus 980 IS \| Wo Shi Kyo!~* I can be contacted regarding ANY transaction at this e-mail address: kyobiz@gmail.com

4th September 2002, 11:03 AM	#14
Dellwood Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 813	I like the file system level security and encryption and stuff. Easier to manage then the linux ext3 file security things, although more confusing at times! __________________ Your sig is meant to have something which Identifies your posts, and makes them easily distinguishable as yours in the mess of posts. SO MAKE IT ORIGINAL! /mescowlsatsigswith"MyPCis:insertyourPChere"

4th September 2002, 11:46 AM	#15
Dr Dremel Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: On An Island Somewhere Posts: 805	I didn't say it wouldn't work, have a look at what the cluster size is now. It will be 64kb when it should be 4kb, Performance will decrease accordingly.