coverting fat32 to ntfs

[robcat]

Hi folks,

I have looked through the forum and found some useful help on this subject. the post that I read refered to an external drive, I also visited the web site that was linked with that post it did not help. The problem is that my hard drive is not external and when I followed the post' instructions it did not work. I have a sony vaio pent 3 using ATI rad 7500.
256 mg ram.

I am in no way a cumputer wizard like alot of you, and do not really fully grasp all the terms that is used in this forum. My C drive is 15G and my
D drive is 21G. I am running through windows ME. I understand that 15 g' and 21g' is not alot for video editing, but I really am eager to convert the thousands of hours of home video (Analogue) that I have into DVD.

Also if I can change the format from fat32 to ntfs would I be able to increase my hard drive space so I could record longer sessions, and if not would I be able to purchase an external HDD so I could save my analogue vid' into that. I am also worried that if i right click on my D drive and click format and it formats that drive what would it format the drive too, and would I be able to us it.

please keep in mind that my computer is old and I really do not want to dump hundreds of $ into my computer.

Sorry for the million questions.

Any and all good and not so good advice is helpful.
TX
Robert

[Terry Stetler]

Windows ME cannot use the NTFS filesystem.

While there are hacks that can give it very limited NTFS suport these are definitely not useful for video.

While WinNT, Windows 2000 and WinXP all will support NTFS I'd strongly recommend upgrading to WinXP as it's been shown to be the better option.

[sjj1805]

Firstly Windows ME does not work on NTFS - you are stuck with FAT 32.
If however you did have Windows XP and a FAT 32 hard drive system, you would not have to re-format the hard drive. Re-format = wipes it clean and lose everything. Instead you would convert the hard drive from FAT 32 to NTFS and all of your files, programs, operating system and everything would remain intact.

I don't know what part of the world your from but here in the U.K. there are indoor computer markets called computer fairs. The one I obtain most of my hardware from can be seen in this link.

Unlike going to a computer store such as PC World which can be rather expensive, at a computer fair it is like any other market. Several stall holders place their goods out on stalls for sale. You can buy brand new or second hand equipment. You can purchase a complete ready to use computer or if you fancy building your own, you can buy the bits and pieces.

Because these stall holders are competiing against each other - prices are about as cheap as you can get. why would you buy a DVD writer for £30 off this stall when 2 stalls away you can get the exact same item for £25.

The stall holders also provide a guarantee. I've had the odd faulty item and had no problem getting it exchanged or refunded.

In fact prices are so cheap that for many people it isn't even worth upgrading their current system and it works out more cost effective to go and purchase a whole brand new system from one of these computer fairs.

[robcat]

thanks for the advise.

only one question can I increase either my C or D drive to allow me to store long AVI files or do i have to Buy an external drive.

(my drives are partitioned) would that effect my plans in convert fat32 to ntsf and increase my HDD space.
TX
Rob

[Ken Berry]

Not sure if I correctly understand your question. But the only way you can increase the space of your C:\ and D:\ partitions is to physically replace the hard disc on which they are located with a much larger one, re-load your operating system (and all your other programs and files) and re-partition. Changing from FAT32 to NTFS will in no way give you extra space on your current HDD.

And with your current set-up, even if C:\ was empty apart from Win ME, you would still only have space enough for one hour of DV; and on your D:\ partition a bit over 90 minutes. And absolutely no room for working folders, where temp files are generated which can chew up (temporarily) up to twice the amount of hard disc space than the file you are editing.

[sjj1805]

You show 2 drive letters C and D and state your drives are partitioned.
By this I think you mean that you have one physical hard drive that has been made to appear as two by virtue of partitioning.

If this is the case rather than opt for an external hard drive I think it would be a safer move to install a second physical hard drive. Go for the largest your pocket can afford and one with a spin speed of at least 7200 rpm.

You should have 4 IDE slots. Currently I suspect you are using two.
One for the physical hard drive and the other for your DVD burner. You should therefore be able to install up to another two internal hard drives before resorting to external drives or hard drive caddies.