Problem with Fat32 & Ntfs

[Moiz]

I had a change my system file from the Fat32 to ntfs and my pc restarts everytime booting on windows. Please tell me how to get back to fat32? Thanks in advance

[ApPy10]

The problem is not your migration from fat32 to ntfs I think, but rather the identification of your partitions and boot sector. It should be certainly checking your boot.ini.

[EINSTEIN_007]

Since you have NTFS as a file allocation system on your hard drive, and you need to revert back to FAT32, here's what you need to do:

In order to remove the NTFS file system, you will need to reformat your hard disk so it can use the FAT or FAT32 file system.

There are two ways to do it by using the Windows XP Startup disks or (if your computer supports a bootable CD-ROM) — most computers built since 2001 have this feature — use the Recovery Console tool on the Windows XP CD-ROM.

Remember, reformatting a hard disk deletes all of the data that is on it, so make sure that you back up your data before you reformat the disk. That data is unrecoverable afterwards.

To use the Recovery Console to reformat a drive, follow these steps:

Start the computer by using the Windows XP CD-ROM or the start-up disks. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press F10.

In the Recovery Console, specify the appropriate installation, and then log on by using your Administrator password (and not the password of your spouse or kids. if you are the only user of the computer then you are the administrator...so just log in as you would normally).


Next, type:

map

and hit the ENTER key.

Note the drive that you want to reformat. The drive letters may be different in the Recovery Console from what they are in Windows XP, but if you want to reformat the C: drive, it's the largest.


Next, type:

format C:/fs:fat32

Or if you don't want to format C, use the drive letter of the hard drive that you want to format. Hit your ENTER key.


Next, type:

y


Then press ENTER to continue. When the formatting process is finished, type

exit

and then press the ENTER key to restart the computer.

Source: cyberwalker.com

[JAMES_911]

The only way you can go from NTFS for FAT32 is using Partition Magic, and even it has troubles.

Here's how I can see things being solved:
Boot into WinXP on your First Partition (Drive C) and format drive D as Fat32 (Bring up My Computer then right-click on Drive D and choose Format).

Copy across all your My Docs files etc that you'll want backed up, dont forget emails, favorites, address book and anything else like accounting software data.

Once you've done that, you're going to want to copy the Win98 CD to your Hard Drive - Its just easier IMO.
Put in the Win98 CD and there should be a folder on it called Win98. Copy this folder to your D: Drive and rename it "setup98"

Now for the scary part - Reboot your PC with a Boot Disk in it (WinXP or Win98 Boot Disk - doesnt matter because we've got Win98 Setup files your HDD.
You may need to use fdisk now to delete a "Non-Dos partition".
From there, create a Primary Partition (still in FDisk) and reboot your PC with the boot floppy in.

Now, format c:

Everything at this point is still on D: which is good - your backups are safe :-)
Now you want to:
mkdir c:\Setup98
copy d:\Setup98\*.* c:\Setup98\*.*
deltree d:\setup98

This has will copy across the setup files for Win98 to your C: Drive, Just in case you decide to play around with your D: Drive and NTFS later again.

Now, type:
cd c:\setup98

And to begin the installation of Win98, type
setup

This will install Win98 - Follow through with the prompts etc until you're all setup.

Dont forget your drivers etc.

Next, begin the WinXP Setup when you're all happy with Win98 being installed / Drivers and what-not.
Only when it asks you, tell it you want to install it onto D: (FAT32). Its going to try and tell you that you should format and start clean but since when does Bill Gates know whats best for you ;-)
You want to install on drive D: and tell it to Leave the partition as it is and DONT format - Your backups are still on it.

Once WinXP is installed you'll be able to use the WinXP Boot Loader to choose either Win98 or WinXP on boot.

Hope this helps