I have an extra Hdd .
It has NTFS file on it but I wud like to convert it to Fat32 so that I can load Win 98 on it.
Can anyone give me the best way to go about converting it?
I tried using the Win 98 startup disk to FDisk to delete the NTFS file but then the whole file dissappeared!!
It says 'No disk detected".
Thanks.

Do you have a system with XP installed on it that you can use?
If so, install the spare hdd as a slave, boot the system and see if it is detected.
if it is, you can format the spare as fat32 from within xp (you can do this directly from explorer, or by using disk management)
turn off the indexing service for the spare hdd before you try to format it (if it is enabled) and make sure you don't have anything such as norton utilities protecting the disk - otherwise it will kindly tell you to go away.
Once the hdd has been formatted, you should be able to use it wherever you want - win 98 can't do anything with the NTFS simply because it doesn't understand it.
......or you can just do pave specres suggestion - missed the obvious one of having to create a new partition!!!:D

When you used fdisk, after deleting the NTFS partition you also need to vreate another partition, and the after exiting fdisk you can then format the disk as FAT.

{edit} or do as deddard suggests.

Yes, yr suggestions give me some ideas.
Will work on it.
Thanks.
Meantime I hv lost the NTFS file after Fdisk n deleting it.

bomuk,
A machine functioning on NTFS can read a FAT32 partition/folder/file, and can also convert it to NTFS. You can not however convert from NTFS to FAT. If you deleted the NTFS partition in fdisk, it is gone! If you wanted to keep this file, sorry:( If you are simply not seeing this file in DOS or not seeing the partition it was on in fdisk, that is because it is a non-DOS partition. You would have had to deleted "Non-DOS partitions" in fdisk specificly to have lost it.
As recommended, you should try to view this drive on an NTFS machine to see if you have lost your file.

Good luck
Frank

You can not however convert from NTFS to Fat.


However, one can still do that through the use of Partition Magic, can't they?

Partitiom Magic 8.0 will convert NTFS to FAT32 in a New York minute.

:cool: Interesting. An old dog learns a new trick. I do not use any of the partitoning utilities so I was unaware of this, cool.

The really cool part about PM 8.0 is that what ever you do to any drive all the files, programs etc: are safe and wind up in perfect condition--though the PM people cover themselves and suggest you back up everything. Ive done some wild and weird things with PM on a drive that I could care less about---always comes out fine. try it you`ll like it.

Lets not lose sight of the fact that a file was inadvertently lost due to deleting the partition with fdisk.

DONT REPARTITION AND REFORMAT if you want to have any hope of recovering this file.

If you havent yet repartitioned etc you will need to use recovery software such as GetDataBack for NTFS (http://www.runtime.org/). Slave the drive with the deleted partition and access it from getdataback running on another partition.

You can still attempt recovery after repartitoning and reformatting but with each new writing of anything to the partition the chance of recovering what you want keeps diminishing.

BTW, there is a very easy way to change the formatting for a single file and that is to just copy and paste it into a FAT volume. PM (and other utilities) can browse such NTFS partitions, if you are not running Win2K/XP, and copy and paste the file that way.

There are certainly other NTFS readers out there and a bit of Googling should detect where they can be obtained.

So that I can do it better the next time.
With so many alternatives now, can you tell me how to go about if I shd have a 10gig Hdd split into 2 files.
My pc is running WIn98Se.
7gigs of the file is already in Primary Dos running fat32 while the other 3gigs is in ntfs in extended dos.
I need to change the 3gig to fat32 with fdisk utitlity.
So do I just delete the 3 gigs of extended dos partition?
And after deleting , how to I retrieve it back to add to the 7gigs of fat32 to make it 10 gigs
Tks.

Fdisk won't do what you want to do, you would have to use a utility like Partition Magic. Fdisk won't resize or combine partitions. You would have to delete the Non-DOS partition, delete the Primary, REBOOT then repartition as one big drive to begin with, and of course it would then have to be formatted and the OS reinstalled.

With Partition Magic you should be able to delete the 3GB partition, then resize the remaining 7GB partition to use the full capacity of the drive. Look through the PM options, one of the things it can do is resize partitions, that's the option you want. It should also let you use either file system, FAT or NTFS and should convert between the two also.

Ok, I think I can manage that.
Thank You.

Bomuk Just to help you to be clear about describing these issues in the future. You have referred, a couple of times now, to these "divisions" on your HDD as files. Files are different things - they are sub-units of a partition or the folders inside it. When HDDs are divided up in this way it is best to refer them as partitions; they can also be called volumes - but calling them files can obsure what you are describing. ;)

Eureka ~! I did it !
Yes, after deleting the ntfs volume which is in the non-dos , I deleted the primary partition.
Then I rebooted.
After verifying the integrity of the file n then it really worked!!
I got my whole hdd back....
Thanks everybody.
Now I m going to try the PM and then followed by the Disk Management (as soon as I can borrow a hdd loaded with 2k)
O, that was good, what a relief.
Whew !
Appreciate all your help.