How long does CONVERT.EXE take?!

[nbarb99]

I'm converting my second hard drive's 27GB partition from FAT32 to NTFS. I ran:

convert e: /fs:ntfs

It ran through the file check fine, had enough temporary disk space, and outputted "Converting File System". It has been running for approximately 5-6 hours so far so I'm wondering if it's hung or something isn't right.

Convert.exe is using 95% of the CPU and the disk is clicking, but is it really supposed to take this long? Shouldn't there at least be some sort of progress bar?

Sorry, it's my first time converting to NTFS

 

[Snapster]

Should only take minutes. Your disk is 'clicking', that don't sound too healthy ?

 

[aceO07]

Yea, definitely shouldn't be taking 5-6hrs. I thought convert was supposed to be run by windows before the desktop loads?

 

[Snapster]

If it's your boot drive, it has to be converted on bootup (says so anyway). If not, you 'can' do it in windows iirc.

 

[nbarb99]

It's not my boot drive, so I didn't have to restart.

By "clicking", I meant "disk activity". Are you sure it should only take minutes? It's 27GB worth of data (only 400MB free space on that partition maybe that has something to do with it?)

 

[Snapster]

Originally posted by: nbarb99
It's not my boot drive, so I didn't have to restart.

By "clicking", I meant "disk activity". Are you sure it should only take minutes? It's 27GB worth of data (only 400MB free space on that partition maybe that has something to do with it?)

Probably allot to do with it. You should move the data off that disk, convert then move it back on as it's much quicker. Converting 27GB of data will probably take it's toll.

 

[Bovinicus]

I say just let the system sit overnight. If it is not done converting by the time you wake up, then something is definitely wrong.

Your lack of free space is most likely the cause of the excessive length of time neccessary for conversion. Limiting the temporary space that the system has to work with will cause the drive to be forced to move data around more to get the same amount of work done.

I'm guessing something has already gone wrong. Usually the conversion happens in well under an hour. However, most of my experiences using the progam have been on systems with for more free space than what you are dealing with.

 

[nbarb99]

Ok, here's the reason for my weird setup

My main HD is a 30GB (27GB formatted) drive, which is full. I have a brand-new 120GB hard drive, so I "cloned" the smaller one to the larger one. The trial version program I used (I'm cheap ) wouldn't "expand" the partition to the full 120GB, so I have a 27GB partition + 85GB of free space on the 120GB hard drive.

Once I have it converted to NTFS I can attempt to expand the partition to the full 120GB.

Sorry, I know that was extremely hard to follow

So anyway, I'll just leave this working overnight. Would there be any harm done in canceling it this far through the process? I could delete some stuff (since it's an exact copy of my other drive) and run the conversion again.

 

[SickBeast]

I don't think cancelling would be a good idea...you could lose all of your data. Do you still have a backup of everything on your old HD? If so I would do this:

-boot from a WinXP/2000 CD
-delete all partitions from the 120gb drive
-create a new 120gb ntfs partition
-install XP
-copy the old hard drive to the new one