BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Help needed

John H.[_3_]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:14:08 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:41:43 -0500, HK wrote:

wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:07:52 -0500, John H.
wrote:

I have a 160 GB external hard disk to which I tried to back up my documents
and settings using the Windows backup system.

After about a half hour, I get a message saying there's not enough room for
the backup, and that if the hard disk is FAT 32, the backup can be no
larger than 4 GB. So I checked, and sure enough, the external HD is FAT 32.

Now what? I already have about 50 GB of stuff on the external HD that I
don't want to lose by reformatting (if that's what's required).

You have a couple of options.

If there is enough room on your computer's harddrive, copy the
archives there temporarily while you work on the external drive. Then
you can use a program called "Partition Magic" to do the
reconfiguration without risk to your archives. Partition Magic "could"
do the conversion with the files in place, BUT: No matter what method
you use to convert the disk to NTFS, the only way to guarantee your
files will be safe is to back them up somewhere else.

The other option is to buy another external hard drive. They are dirt
cheap these days. Newegg is very reliable to deal with and has a ton
of external drives to chose from. They even have a no name 160gb drive
for less than $70 including shipping. I've got several Maxtor's and
they have been great. Still relatively cheap.

I also HIGHLY recommend that you do NOT use Windows Backup for
anything you care about. The reason is simple: When you want to
recover those backups a couple of years from now, you will find that
every new version of Windows has a new version of windows backup, and
they are NOT compatible! Use a separate backup program.

Jesus. This is overkill. It is a relatively trivial task to convert a
drive from FAT32 to the New Technology File System, aka NTFS. There's a
simple procedure to accomplish it, which I posted here. You can do it
without losing the data on the hard drive. I've done it a few times
without any problems.

I don't care if you've done it a thousand times with no problem. It's
HIS data on the drive, and he said he doesn't want to lose it. I
believe him, and took that into account.

You have firmly established your lack of computer expertise in many
previous posts. Now you are recommending that he risk data he said he
doesn't want to lose. Guess what? You could cross the freeway
blindfolded as many times as you've converted drives while they have
data on them, and you might survive every time, as well. Please try
THAT experiment and get back to us.

One more time:
"No matter what method you use to convert the disk to NTFS, the only
way to guarantee your files will be safe is to back them up somewhere
else"

Which is the same advice Microsoft gives.
--
John H