I would like first to welcome all Long Path Tool blog visitors and followers. Today in this review, I would like to answer some of the many questions I receive by email from our valued users. One of the common questions, I received is how to convert the hard drive or a partition or more from FAT32 to NTFS. Please sit back and enjoy reading this simple guide I prepared especially for easy to follow by soft-core users even if you didn’t use windows before, you can easily do this. First we need to clarify the difference between the two systems, FAT32 and NTFS. NTFS is more secured data saving system than FAT32. NTFS saves data in smaller data clusters or blocks which allows more efficient usage of disk space than FAT32. NTFS provides compression and high levels of data management. For users who use Windows NT or windows 98, can use FAT and FAT32 systems rather than NTFS. One of the easiest ways to convert from FAT32 to NTFS without formatting or reinstalling Windows is using following easy steps:
Go to Start Menu then choose RUN or press (Windows sign ÿ + R). In the RUN windows type “CMD” and then press enter. A command prompt will launch on your screen and using the Convert command type: convert c: /fs:ntfs and press enter, assuming your default drive letter is C:/ so you will change it to the letter of the drive you wish to convert. Default allocation size of NTFS is more than 4 GB for a single file which is limited by this size in FAT32 system. After the conversion completes, you will receive a message Conversion Complete. Close the command window and enjoy using NTFS drives in easy and most reliable experience. Long Path Tool works with both systems but we prefer NTFS for the reasons mentioned above. What if the drive you need to convert is the same drive running your windows system? You may encounter an error message:
Convert cannot gain exclusive access to the drive letter drive, so it cannot convert it now. Would you like to schedule it to be converted the next time the system restarts? <Y/N>
If you type Y for accepting, Conversion will take place next time you reboot your machine before any files is used and then Long Path Tool will start working. Even some users after rebooting still can’t make the conversion. If you have Long Path Tool on your machine I guarantee this would not happen. Another type of message you may meet in the command prompt:
Convert cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Convert may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? <Y/N>
This may happen because some users may access your network or use files on your system. For solving this error, use Long Path Tool as we learned before and Type Y in the command prompt to allow the conversion even if there were files being used at the same time of conversion. After rebooting your windows, everything should go just fine. One of the most common errors we see in Command prompt or (cmd.exe) program is related to COPY or DELETE of files. Sometimes users need to execute these commands from the command prompt window. Without using Long Path Tool, This would be quite impossible to make modifications to files from CMD window if they exceed the MAX_PATH setting or the 256 characters limitation. Maximum filename length in NTFS is 255 characters if UTF-16 and is 11 characters if it is FAT system. You can try for yourself in the command window before and after conversion and check the difference in the windows path limit and why everybody wants NTFS with Long Path Tool. For ultimate experience I should recommend to purchase Long Path Tool to receive full updates and elimination of error messages from your system.
NTFS system is not limited to max_path but the windows shell is, Long Filenames in Windows 8 in NTFS is 32k characters. Long Path Tool creates a virtual drive which is not limited by max_path which works as an extension to the physical drive and after it allows us to fully complete our changes to the filenames and directory names it removes the virtual drive keeping the data only in the physical data clusters. We can say windows XP/2003/vista are similar in their coded anatomy while windows 7/8 are also identical regarding the long file path destinations. The bottom line for our readers is we hope you found useful information in this article and we expect all your questions on our email support@longpathtool.com wait us for more interesting reviews in the next few hours.
