Fat32 to NTFS conversion problem

I have a bad hard drive and I am replacing it, but to do so I need to back up what's readable on it first. After about 6(literally) problems I have never been more frustrated in my life because every step in this process has caused me a headache because some part of it hasn't worked. Ever since my hard drive went bad I couldn't: diagnose (I tried 3 different ways and none of them worked), transfer files, ect. without having a problem within every single step. Anyway, enough of my ranting and onto the question. After trying to copy files from my computer to my WB hard drive, using my linux partition, it stopped at 4.3GB and I learned that is because the Hard Drive is fat32, yet one more layer of frustration. Now I am using another computer to use windows to convert the external hard drive to NTFS WITHOUT formatting it, which can be done, generally without problems, but no, I had to have yet one more problem. I used this process to convert the hard drive: Convert FAT32 to NTFS Without Formatting or Losing Data

After starting the conversion I get an error that reads something like this:

C:\Windows\system32>convert I:/FS:NTFS
The type of the file system is FAT32.
Enter current volume label for drive I: My Book
Volume My Book created 2/9/2006 1:42 PM
Volume Serial Number is 8525-1B52
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
1,464,778,304 KB total disk space.
774,624 KB in 7,216 hidden files.
1,627,520 KB in 50,567 folders.
396,259,104 KB in 382,897 files.
1,066,117,024 KB are available.

32,768 bytes in each allocation unit.
45,774,322 total allocation units on disk.
33,316,157 allocation units available on disk.

Determining disk space required for file system conversion...
Total disk space: 1465136001 KB
Free space on volume: 1066117024 KB
Space required for conversion: 2439413 KB
Converting file system
Insufficient Memory HERE IS WHERE THE ERROR COMES IN:
Error converting file CDRIVE~1.WIM.
The file may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
Error converting directory FACTOR~1.
The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
Error converting directory $RS1FZGP.
The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
Error converting directory $RECYCLE.BIN.
The directory may be damaged or there may be insufficient disk space.
The conversion failed.
I: was not converted to NTFS

C:\Windows\system32>



At first I just deleted these files/folders as I didn't need them. But it seems as though there are too many to practically remove. How do I convert the Hard drive to NTFS SUCCESSFULLY so one part of this process can actually work for me and I can finally move on? Any help will be appreciated!!!

 

You could use LiveCD (Ubuntu) & bypass the conversion to NTFS
PitaBred gives a great explanation here http://forum.notebookreview.com/1564664-post10.html
This provides more details and a link to grab the latest version https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
Basically you boot and run linux from CD, on the other computer (with the good & bad HDD's connected) and are able to copy files from the bad hard drive to the good drive.

 

Thanks for your reponce, however, I NEED my hard drive to be NTFS to copy all of my files because they are larger than 4GB. Somehow I NEED to convert it or force my computer to copy more than 4GB onto a FAT32 hard drive.

 

Can you run a chkdsk /r i: ? Maybe there is file system corruption, index corruption, bad clusters, etc.

If you can and it does fix something, you may then be able to convert i: /fs:ntfs.

 

What is the Windows system you're using to convert the drives? "Insufficient Memory" is pretty much an explicit error, it means the system doing the conversion ran out of RAM. Everything else cascades from there.

Have you restarted that system recently? What all is running? How much RAM does it have in it? Is the swap file enabled?

 

Partition the FAT32 drive into multiple partitions, each of which will hold the 4G limit you now have. AFTER all of the files are safely copied, you can mess around with NTFS, etc.

When messing w/hard drives, remember that saving the data is the most important factor. You can always start over, but you can't recreate lost data.

 

@OP

I highly recommend you get another hard drive, copy everything over to that first before you mess with your current drive anymore. If anything goes wrong, you'll have another issue on your hands IF that data is IMPORTANT to YOU.