Convert 500gb ntfs drive to fat32 without losing data?

[hiromizu]

been trying with PM 8 and Acronis 10 but they won't do it.

 

[Diogenes2]

I don't think there is an easy/guaranteed safe way to do that..

Just back up the NTFS drive, reformat to FAT32, then restore.

 

[hiromizu]

I don't have another medium to put 480gb worth of data on right now and I don't value the data enough to bother backing it up so I am willing to take the risk. I just need a way to do it and I can't find a working method.

 

[Diogenes2]

Just Google " Convert NTFS to FAT32 " ... And good luck ..

 

[hiromizu]

already did. AT was my last hope : )

 

[corkyg]

My bad! Got my lookups wrong. Sorry!

 

[hiromizu]

FAT32 has a 32GB patrition size limit. What you are trying to do is mission impossible. I suppose you could copy the data on to 15 thumb drives of 32GB each. But, you can't format a 500GB drive to FAT32.

incorrect info but thanks.

 

[Soundmanred]

incorrect info but thanks.

This made me laugh. 🙂
(You're right)

 

[RebateMonger]

already did. AT was my last hope : )

Sorry, but you need to look a bit harder. In the past I've seen several articles on how to do it. But it's been a while. But I'm POSITIVE there are articles on how to do it. Some of the articles use various specialized utilities.

Apparently some versions of Partition Magic could do it. http://www.sevenforums.com/software/25902-convert-ntfs-fat32-without-format.html

Also, my reading indicates that GParted knows how to do this. http://superuser.com/questions/115074/convert-ntfs-to-fat32-without-losing-data

If nothing else, I read one suggestion to use GParted to downsize the NTFS partition and create a small FAT32 partition. Then move files from NTFS to FAT32 partition. Then make NTFS partition even smaller and the FAT32 partition even larger and move some more files. When you are done, the NTFS partition has been erased and only the FAT32 partition remains (with all your files, except for the 4 GB+ ones).