INTRODUCTION:

Microsoft Windows XP supports the following three file systems for fixed disks:

• FAT16
• FAT32
• NTFS

We recommend that you use NTFS with Windows XP because of its advanced performance, security, and reliability features. This article describes how to convert a FAT16 volume or a FAT32 volume to NTFS.

Convert FAT32 to NTFS:

You have a flash drive or probably an external hard drive that currently has FAT32 file system and you want to change it to NTFS, because FAT32 does not support handling large files (over 4GB) or it is just simply old for your taste. This article is for you then as it explains exactly how you can achieve seamless transition from FAT to NTFS.

FAT 32 to NTFS Conversion Steps:

1) Go to Computer, and note the name of the drive whose file system you wish to convert.
2) Click on Start.
3) Type cmd in the search bar if you use Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows Vista. If you use Windows XP, click on Run and then execute cmd.
4) Execute "chkdsk h: /f " (without quotes) where H is the letter of the drive to undergo conversion. This checks the drive for errors and fixes them automatically.
5) Execute "Convert H: /FS: NTFS" (without quotes). H is again the letter of the drive to be converted.
6) The command prompt will start the conversion process and after a few minutes, CMD will say that conversion was successful.
7) You can check it in the properties of the drive through right click<Properties.

 

This works on Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Vista. I converted my flash drive's file system using these steps and it worked flawlessly. It is interesting to note that this method cannot be used to reconvert NTFS file system back to FAT32. To reconvert back to FAT32, you will need to format the entire drive which will definitely cause data loss.

Copying files to a disc, "the file has extra information attached to it." How to fix this? 

Hi, when I'm copying files to a disc, I get this error: 

1. Disk full, do some cleanup for getting space for copying files.

2. Confirm stream loss: "The file 'file name' has extra information attached to it that might be lost if you continue copying. The contents of the file will not be affected. Do you want to copy this file anyway?"

I'm wiping some files off my laptop, but I need to keep important ones. Am I safe to do this when this message comes up? Will they copy correctly?

Best Answer:

You are probably copying to an external disk that has been formatted using the FAT file system. Windows can read and write to FAT disks but it uses the NTFS file system for it's internal disks.

FAT disks only store the file and it's attributes (hidden, read-only etc.) whilst NTFS disks also store security information (and other system information) as well as the file data and attributes.

So when you copy a file from an NTFS disk to a FAT disk the file contents and attributes are copied but not the security and other system info.

Since all you are interested in is the actual data in the files you can safely ignore this message.

 

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