Cause The New Technology File System (NTFS) is the file system of choice for Windows XP. However, if you upgraded from Windows 98/Me, then you probably still have a FAT32 drive. Also, the drive may have come from the computer manufacturer to you as a FAT32 drive. NTFS provides better management features than FAT32, but keep in mind that it is not required for use with Windows XP—a FAT32 drive will work just fine. However, if you really want to use NTFS so that you can take advantage of compression and other features, you can convert the drive to NTFS with no problems and no data loss at all.
The Pain Killer To convert a drive to NTFS, follow these steps:
- First, make sure the drive is formatted with FAT32. Click Start | My Computer. Right-click the drive you want to convert (such as your C drive), and then click Properties.
- On the General tab, under File System, if the file system is already listed as NTFS, then there is nothing more to do. If the file system is listed as FAT32, go to step 3.
- Before performing the conversion, back up your data just to be safe. You may wish to back up your data to a CD or other removable device.
- Click Start | Run. Type Command in the dialog box and click OK.
In the command window, shown in the illustration, type the following command:
convert driveletter: /fs:ntfs
For example, if you want to convert your C drive, type convert c: /fs:ntfs. Make sure you punctuate the command correctly and that you leave a space after the driveletter and colon.
- Click OK.
