Resolved converting FAT32 to NTFS

Hello

For some reason I no longer remember, when I last partitioned my C: drive - some time ago - I elected to keep one partition (D: as it happens, part of an extended partition) formatted as FAT32. Apart from that, the other partitions on that drive are either NTFS or Linux.

If I ever needed to do this, which I doubt, it's become a nuisance now. But my attempts to convert this partition to NTFS have so far been fruitless.

I've glanced at the relevant parts of Windows 'Help', and can return to this if needs be. But since I have Acronis Disk Director installed, it's usually my app of choice for disk management. Acronis DD will not, however, convert from FAT32 to NTFS (only from FAT16 to 32 it seems).

Preparatory to converting, I used DD to copy my D: partition to another disk temporarily (and as a backup should disaster strike). That other drive is formatted as NTFS but, lo and behold, I see that the FAT32 partition when copied to that NTFS drive remains as FAT32.

So if (as was my plan), having formatted the original D: partition as NTFS (thereby erasing its contents), I were to move the copy back to that partition I will have gained exactly nothing because it will still be formatted as FAT32 and I'll be back at square one

At the moment I can't see any escape from this loop. Can anyone please enlighten me as to what I'm missing?

 

Hi Arie

I must say I continue to be impressed by your lightning-fast responses! Apposite too.

Here's what I did (in case it helps anyone else):

Doubled the size of the partition ('G') on which I'd placed the (temporary) copy of the original D: partition. This was to be sure of having enough room available for it to be converted - in fact, much less would have sufficed but it's guesswork anyway.

Converted it to NTFS by following the MS guide.

Deleted the original FAT32 partition 'D', thereby avoiding converting from an existing FAT32 volume, with attendant restrictions thereafter.

Re-sized partition 'G' (now NTFS) so as to fit exactly into the 'unallocated space' created by the deletion of the original 'D'.

Moved partition 'G' to that unallocated space, where it automatically became re-named as 'D', NTFS formatted

Maybe this procedure was unnecessarily complicated, I don't know. Anyway I ended up where I was aiming to be The only (very slight) annoyance was that I overlooked that Emails in and out (having been stored meanwhile on the partition I then deleted - I keep my Emails on my Data partition not on the system partition) were lost; luckily there weren't many.

Thanks very much for your help.