Acer FAT32/NFTS Spilt drive question.

Have a Acer Aspire 5102

Acer spilts the Harddrive in two even drives. I always put files in my D: drive if I need to use recovery, and the D: drive files are not affected.

Will converting to NFTS erase my D: drive and make the HD just one drive? Will I lose Files from my D: drive?


This is the only reason I didn't change the partition yet.

And also I heard different answers about the recovery dvds I made will work if I convert. What the deal on that?

 

Converting from FAT32 to NTFS will (normally) not lead to file loss.

 

A couple of things to keep in mind when converting.
First, you can convert one or both partitions. (For example, you could convert your C partition to NTFS, while leaving your D partition alone).

You specify the partition you want to convert with the command itself.
So no, converting just your C partition will not remove your D partition.

However, if you convert, I'm told the "eRecovery" utility will no longer work as intended, since it relies on Fat32.

Your recovery cd's or dvd's should still work since they are bootable, but if you used them to go back to factory, I'm told there would be one large partition instead of two.

And last, (but maybe most important), I don't think a lot people who are using the "CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS" command realize that it will result in an undesirable cluster size of 512 bytes instead of the default 4kb that a clean install of XP as NTFS would give you.

Here is an older but good article explaining that.

(From the link below):

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php


I've seen a BIG performance hit from this smaller cluster size.....often making the machine much slower than it was with Fat32. So be leary of claims that it "really speeds your machine up".

The fact is (unless you're doing a clean install), it will probably slow it down.

A third party program like Partition Magic can convert the cluster size from 512byes to 4 kb after the fact, but I haven't tried it before myself .


Just some things to keep in mind. (People feel free to correct me or add to this from your own experiences)

And for those who already converted, check your cluster size. (You can use the "analyze" part of the built in windows defrag to check what it is).

If it's 512 bytes rather than 4 kb, it's not performing the way it could.

 

I used partition magic to convert my D to NTFS and it has 4kb cluster. And I used command line to change C and yes it had 512b cluster. I tried to boot from DVd and it seems that it was sort of ghost image of erecovery so I was worried that erecovery will not work just in case i have HDD crash or smthing.
Now I convert back my C to Fat32 and leave my D ntfs.

 

Do you mean you have your C (System) partition NTFS and your D (recovery partition) Fat32?

(You wrote it the other way)

Unless that is the way you really do have it, in which case I'm not sure why you don't just leave everything Fat32. (That way, not only would your Boot DVD's work, but your eRecovery utility would still work too).


(Sorry if I'm misunderstanding).

(Edit) Ah...unless you wanted the D drive for storage, and don't want to be limited to the the 4gb file size of fat32.
Maybe that's what you mean.

 

Thanks everybody for the info ......

I'm going to just save all my data on D: drive to DVDs.

Then I'm going to change my D: to NTFS and keep my C: FAT32 (just to be on the safe side, so I can use my recovery DVDs).

Hopefully I be able to download over 4gb files on my D: drive.

I will be doing a CLEAN INSTALL. I probally don't need to but thats just me

So I can just use a program the boots up on disk and I can just select D: partition and convert. Should I do this before or after I reinstall my recovery DVD?

 

Personally I'd do the following

Use the recovery DVD (that will get back to fresh state, although depending on the machine I've noticed quirks with that)

2. Partition as appropriate (when I recovered mine to fresh state, despite the factory fresh having two paritions, the recovered state only had one)

3. Format D to NTFS.

I did that with my 8204, so now have a 30GB C drive (FAT32) and a 90GB D Drive (NTFS)

 

I used the convert on several hard drives in the past and did not experience what you mention here. On my Acer, converted both C and D drives with 4kb clusters on both. Didn't do anything special.