Converting ext2 to NTFS?

[Xtremist]

How can I convert a partition from ext2 to NTFS? I've been searching online for a long, long time now and still haven't found a solution! It can either be a Windows or Linux based solution since it's a secondary hard drive and so it doesn't run an OS or anything... Anyway, I'm exhausted from looking so hopefully someone all ready has this knowledge! Thanks.

 

[Soccerman]

I don't know for sure but I think upon installation in Linux Mandrake 8.1 I could format a drive in NTFS if I wanted.. I don't know what version it would have been though. that doesn't mean I could CONVERT anything, but I know in Linux it's possible to make an NTFS drive/partition..

 

[Xtremist]

Yeah, Linux is good like that. The thing I'm trying to avoid obviously though is 'formating' I have about 75GB of data that I need to preserve and I'd rather not have to burn it to CD or buy another large HDD... Thanks for replying though.

Still looking for an answer! *Off to bed*

 

[khayyam]

you can't. the closest you could get would be to get partition magic so that you can resize the partitions. then shrink the ext2 partition to the smallest possible size, and create an ntfs partition in the leftovers. then boot linux and move data. then resize. then move data.... etc. if you have a fairly large percentage (>20%, say) free disk space, it wouldn't be too bad. if you have less, it'll take a while. if you have none... well, you're SOL.

 

[Xtremist]

Well, I should be able to do that hopefully. I figured that might be what I had to end up doing, but I wanted to make sure and hopefully save myself some time... Plus, I don't feel very comfortable resizing different partitions so much like that But thanks.

 

[lorlabnew]

Be carefull when resizing ext2 with PartitionMagic. I did this about a month ago (used PM7). Resized about 28% and stopped dead there. My repeated atttempts to fix the partition with e2fsck failed (while it looked promising first, turned out to have too many errors), and I had to reformat....

 

[Xtremist]

Ugh I didn't (well maybe I did) need to hear that... I don't know, hmm. Is there a way to access/read ext2 partitions in Widows? If I could do that, at least I could access the data and move it to CD eventually...

 

[Nothinman]

There's explore2fs (something like that) which is a program that reads ext2 partitions, I used it and it worked ok. I've also seen ext2 filesystem drivers for NT which would let you use it like any other drive in NT, although I havn't used them.

 

[Xtremist]

Thanks. I'm to a point now where at least I know the possibilities and can research it on my own Thanks everyone for their replies...

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< There's explore2fs (something like that) which is a program that reads ext2 partitions, I used it and it worked ok. I've also seen ext2 filesystem drivers for NT which would let you use it like any other drive in NT, although I havn't used them. >>



thats pretty cool, where did you see these drivers at? (/me is gonna go look around )