NTFS Shows up as FAT32

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Gainsley
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim Gainsley

I formatted an 80gb volume as NTFS, but it shows up in diskmgmt as FAT32.
How come?

Jim
 
Jim said:
I formatted an 80gb volume as NTFS, but it shows up in diskmgmt as
FAT32. How come?
Click to expand...

Can you post screenshots somewhere showing it is NTFS as well as the disk
manager screenshots showing it thinks it is FAT32?

What is shown when you just right-click on said volume and choose
properties?
 
Well, this is an 82gb disk that formats to 76.6gb. FAT32 is has a max limit
of 32gb, and also, when I went to format it, the only option was NTFS. When
I click on the disk properties they come up showing FAT32 and there is no
place that I can get a reading of NTFS now. The disk seems normal in all
ways. In any event, it can't in fact be FAT32.

Jim
 
Jim said:
I formatted an 80gb volume as NTFS, but it shows up in diskmgmt as
FAT32. How come?
Click to expand...

Shenan said:
Can you post screenshots somewhere showing it is NTFS as well as
the disk manager screenshots showing it thinks it is FAT32?

What is shown when you just right-click on said volume and choose
properties?
Click to expand...

Jim said:
Well, this is an 82gb disk that formats to 76.6gb. FAT32 is has a
max limit of 32gb, and also, when I went to format it, the only
option was NTFS. When I click on the disk properties they come up
showing FAT32 and there is no place that I can get a reading of
NTFS now. The disk seems normal in all ways. In any event, it
can't in fact be FAT32.
Click to expand...

Not entirely correct. Windows XP will only format FAT32 volumes up to
32GB - but that is FAR below the actual limitations of the file system
(FAT32) or the support for utilizing it in Windows XP. So - it can be
FAT32 - but not if formatted with the native Windows XP utilities to do so.

As for *why* it is showing up as FAT32 in the system proerties - I cannot
say - since I have never seen this.

My next query to you would be, "What happens when you create a folder on
that drive and right click on that and choose properties? Do you have a
Security tab? (Assuming this is Windows XP Professional or Media Center and
you are an admin...)"
 
Interesting--no a new folder does NOT have a security tab, just General,
Sharing, and Customize. (The Sharing tab does have a security section).
Perhaps I should add that after formatting the disk originally (NTFS), we
then populated the volume via Norton's Ghost, which copied the old 15gb Eide
ata disk to the new 80gb sata disk. Could Ghost have had something to do
with this? (This is WinXP Pro and I am an Admin. no RAID.)

Jim
 
Jim said:
Interesting--no a new folder does NOT have a security tab, just
General, Sharing, and Customize. (The Sharing tab does have a
security section). Perhaps I should add that after formatting the
disk originally (NTFS), we then populated the volume via Norton's
Ghost, which copied the old 15gb Eide ata disk to the new 80gb sata
disk. Could Ghost have had something to do with this? (This is
WinXP Pro and I am an Admin. no RAID.)
Click to expand...

Ghost could have (likely would have) overwritten the drive with whatever
File System was on the ghosted volume and likely expanded said volume size
to the full partition size.

In other words - if the 15GB image was of a FAT32 drive - then the
application of that image to the new drive would make it(the new
drive/partition) the same file system - or FAT32.
 
I'm glad you agree, that's the only thing I can think of. So, can I use
convert.exe to convert it to NTFS? There is only one volume and tons of
free space. (I don't know the cluster size, will I need to?) If so, what
would the Convert command line look like? Is there is a better way than
using Convert? I assume I'd have to schedule the process to occur at
reboot, no?

Jim
 
Jim said:
I'm glad you agree, that's the only thing I can think of. So, can
I use convert.exe to convert it to NTFS? There is only one volume
and tons of free space. (I don't know the cluster size, will I need
to?) If so, what would the Convert command line look like? Is
there is a better way than using Convert? I assume I'd have to
schedule the process to occur at reboot, no?
Click to expand...

Conversion is pretty easy - but you should read this to get the best
results:

http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php
 
Very very helpful, thanks! One question, since all of this is being done on
one volume, don't I have to use the /cvtarea parameter?
Jim
 
Okay, I read your doco and all went very well. We've XP SP2. BootNG ran
instantly, so there was no boundary problem. Defrag showed no fragmentation.
The Vol ID changed, but didn't trigger the WPA. The conversion took about 2
minutes.
Your doc says to answer Y to the dismount question, but in my case it
doesn't matter, since there is only one volume and No is going to be the
result regardless of the choice. All seems well and NTFS shows up in
properties.

Thanks very much for your help! :-)

BTW, I did try VOLUMEID, but it wouldn't run on this machine--no messages,
just nothing.

Jim
 
go to command prompt and type in, convert c:/fs:ntfs or convert
d:/fs:ntfs enter,you may get a message saying carnt convert at this time
just type in Y for yes to all these questions and exit,turn off pc and then
back on,your computer will start a disk check then convert drive automaticaly
to ntfs.hey presto converted.or msn addy (e-mail address removed) drives
must run on the same 32 bit of ntfs.you will not loose any of your files by
converting.
 
i converted my 32 bit to ntfs and it shows on my disk management as ntfs.go
to command prompt and type in convert c:/fs:ntfs any queries come up just
type in y for yes.like cannot convert to ntfs at this time do it later type
y.when all this is done exit turn off pc then on again,a scan disk will start
then it will convert to ntfs,this then should show up as ntfs in your pc
 
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