Convert FAT32 to NTFS

Change FAT32 to NTFS without formatting or Data loss

Hello Friends,

Here I am sharing how to change file system from FAT to NTFS without any data loss.

 Assume we have a flash drive or an external drive that currently has FAT32 file system and we want to switch it from FAT to NTFS file system, because of FAT32 does not support large files (over 4GB) and also this is the old file system but mostly we faced a problem, we don’t want to loss data. This article is for all and here we are explaining simply how we can convert drive from FAT to NTFS without data loss.

While all experts mostly recommended to use the NTFS file system because of its security, stability and less defragment time. But many people still using FAT32 file system because disks are preformatted with FAT file system.

Until, we notice the “Not enough disk space error” nevertheless disk space is available, we don't bother to switch the file system. But many people don't change it because of the data loss risk.

As the Microsoft was already aware about this scenario, they added a capability in the command prompt to overcome this by executing a simple command. There are many software that support this too but the Convert command is one of the easiest ways to do this. Follow the below steps to know how to convert FAT to NTFS:

NOTE: as this trick is working perfectly, but after that we would still suggest to you to take backup your data in case of any steps goes wrong.

Steps for change FAT32 to NTFS file system:

1) Open the My Computer or Computer, and note down the drive name like: (c: drive, d: drive etc) whose file system you want to change.

2) Click on Start button.

3) Type cmd in the search box if you are using Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows Vista. If you are using Windows XP, click on Start then Run and then type cmd. 

4) Execute "chkdsk d: /f " (without quotes mark) where D is the Drive letter to conversion. This command will check the drive for errors and fixes them automatically.

5) Execute "Convert D: /FS:NTFS" (without quotes mark). D is again the drive letter to be converted.

6) The Command prompt will start the conversion process and after a few minutes, CMD will display a message that conversion was successful.

7) You can check and verify conversion in the properties of the drive by right click then Properties.

This command can also be used to convert FAT16 file system disks and this works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

We had converted our flash drive file system using above steps and it worked properly. this method cannot be used to re-convert NTFS file system to FAT32. To reconvert from NTFS to FAT32, you will need to format the whole drive which will definitely cause of whole data loss.

Thanks,