How to convert a drive to NTFS

Why convert a drive to NTFS?

There are a number of advantages to having a NTFS file system on your hard drive rather than FAT32. The file system that you are running on a hard drive partition will dictate how much security you can place over the files and folders on your computer. The advantages of NTFS are that it's more secure and reliable than its alternatives. It's more able to track disk activity and recover from any errors that may occur. NTFS also allows you to set disk quotas so that you can limit how much hard disk space a user can take up. NTFS also allows you to encrypt files so that only you can view them.
Windows XP comes with its own tool called Convert, for converting FAT drives to NTFS. The conversion process is simple and wont cause any data loss

Converting a drive to NTFS
The convert tool must be run from the command prompt. To open the command prompt click on Start - Run, type "cmd" and click on OK to open the command window. You will need to know the drive letter of the drive you wish to convert. This can be found by looking at the drive in "My Computer". At the prompt you will need to type "convert C: /fs:ntfs" then press Enter (in this case "C:" is the letter of the drive that is to be converted).
If you try to convert the drive that you are currently using, a message will appear informing you that the process will take place the next time you start the computer. When you've restarted you'll be given the opportunity to cancel the conversion if you wish.


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