Any issues converting FAT to NTFS on A30P 2653-6UU?

[gholdsworth]

Hello All,

I would like to convert my C: drive to NTFS, as strongly suggested by Microsoft Frontpage 2000 Server Extensions install SW.

I am running Windows 2000 Professional SP4. My particular model (A30P 2653-6UU) came with W2K Prof, and I have since updated to Service Pack 4. The only thing that has changed is that the original 48GB drive went bad, and I replaced it with a 60GB thinkpad drive, and rebuilt the system from the recovery CD's that EasyServe sent me. I have one large C: partition, and that hidden one.

Can anyone tell me what the issues might be?

How best to do the conversion?
Will all the Thinkpad utility software still work?
Will recovery from the hidden partition still work?
Are there any surprises?
Have others done this successfully on A30P 2653-6UU with W2K, or on a very similar HW/SW Platform?

I recall seeing a post by Bill Morrow a very long time ago touching on this subject, but I can't seem to find it in this forum, or in the old forum.

Thanks.

[Derek B. Cornish]

Don't know if this helps, but I've just been partitioning my A31 (not A30) with PartitionMagic 8.01 and I noticed that the IBM service partition (the hidden one) is FAT32.

As XP automatically converted my C: drive to NTFS when I first booted it up, but has eft the hidden partition as a FAT32 one, there is probably a good reason for this, to do with re-installing the o/s from this partition in the event of problems.

The same may apply to your case - i.e. don't convert the hidden partition to NTFS - if you were thinking of doing so . That's the only issue I can think of.

Derek

[gholdsworth]

Thanks for the info Derek. I will convert only the C: drive. I have a couple of questions that come to mind.

(1) What size did you figure was best when you converted it using PartitionMagic? I understand that the Windows 2000 convert utility uses 512K bytes. I'll have to see what version my old PartitionMagic is, and decide whether to convert using the windows built in utility, or the PartitionMagic.

(2) Do you know of any advantage using PartitionMagic over the built-in O.S. convert command?

If anybody else has anything to add, I would certainly welcome your experience too.

Thanks,

[JHEM]

George,

Leave the hidden partition in FAT32 and use the W2K utility to convert the C: partition to NTFS.

If you don't have a recent version of PM, you might run into MBR problems if you use it to convert the partition.

Regards,

James

[gholdsworth]

Thanks James.

If I convert with W2K, do you know if I can change the size factor later with the latest PartitionMagic?

[JHEM]

Yes, you can change the partition size with PM8.

Regards,

James

[gholdsworth]

James, I was wondering if you could change the NTFS internal size factor from the default of 512K byte sections (as I have heard it to be) to 4K byte sections to get a better space utilization for the same size partition. I have a 60GB drive.

Thanks,

[JHEM]

George,

Change the NTFS cluster size with PM8? Sure.

I don't think I'd go as low as 4k though, you'd suffer an awful performance hit!

Regards,

James

[Derek B. Cornish]

George -

You should be ok with the latest Partition Magic. This is 8.01, AFAIK. My version of PM is the original PowerQuest one. This has v8.0 on the CD, but is labeled v8.01 on the case. It was in fact 8.01, but I had to do a further small patch from their ftp site. This did not change the version number any further. If you have PowerQuest's v8.0 only, you will have to patch it to v8.01, I think, before doing the small final patch.

Symantec issued their own re-badged Norton Partition Magic v8.xx, so if you have that one it will probably be up to date.

The advantage of using PM is the many options it gives, and because it allows partitioning without erasing existing data. I have one primary partition+four logical ones. I can't recall what cluster size I used. I think I just stuck with what was there already (4k maybe?). I have no idea if this is the best size, I'm afraid.

The other hidden primary IBM Services partition (the FAT32 one) holds the o/s recovery stuff and utilities to make PC-DoctorDos diagnostic floppy disks and another bootable floppy (the Recovery Repair diskette). the latter provides access to the service partition via DOS in the event that access via F11 from the initial XP screen is not available.

This was all on an A31 running XP, so your setup may be different.

Good luck,

Derek

[Derek B. Cornish]

CORRECTION TO PREVIOUS MESSAGE

> the latter provides access to the service partition via DOS in the event that access via F11 from the initial XP screen is not available.

The initial screen is, of course, the IBM Thinkpad screen, which appears before XP starts to load. This is the screen I had in mind

(I know you know this, George, but did not want to mislead others.)

Derek