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Formatting from NTFS to FAT32
Name: Stephen Fox Date: September 12, 2006 at 19:27:27 Pacific OS: Windows 95 4.00.950 C CPU/Ram: PENTIUM MMX 333MHz; 384MB Product: GATEWAY 2000 P6-333 DESKT
Comment:
Does formatting a hard drive ruin it? I obtained an old laptop which originally had 2000, then XP. When I deleted the NTFS partition and tried to format as FAT32 (98SE would run better) I noticed that it made different grinding noises. Can changing file systems from NTFS to FAT32 too many times destroy a hard drive?
Stephen Fox Windows 95 4.00.950 C PENTIUM MMX 333MHz; 384MB RAM GATEWAY 2000 P6-333 DESKTOP 80GB
Name: jboy Date: September 12, 2006 at 19:49:07 Pacific
Reply:
... maybe give your head a shake? A bad drive... is a bad drive, no matter what you do.
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'... till you can find a rock
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Response Number 2
Name: ham30 Date: September 12, 2006 at 20:20:02 Pacific
Reply:
"Can changing file systems from NTFS to FAT32 too many times destroy a hard drive?"
Nope. Some drives are a 'little' noisy when they constantly seek. I guess it could be interpreted as grinding. But if it was a problem, that would mean that the heads might have crashed and it would be more of a squealing noise. It wouldn't work for more than a few minutes after that.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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Response Number 3
Name: Mike Newcomb Date: September 13, 2006 at 12:05:08 Pacific
Reply:
You may hit problems trying to format fat32 if the hdd is already format ntfs.
a) try using the format /u and /c options
b) if still no luck, download the low level formatter from the hdd makers website and run, then fdisk and format again.
If the hdd has many failed sectors (maybe increaseing) and/or is noisy it could be on its way out.
Good Luck - Keep us posted.
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Response Number 4
Name: lukeles Date: September 16, 2006 at 20:56:52 Pacific
Summary: I recently bought a Seagate 1tb External Hard Drive, it is in NTFS but I need it to be in FAT32 as I intend to use it to stream video files (.avi) through my PS3, and the PS3 only recognises FAT32, ho...
Summary: You can try Partition Magic but there is no guarantee that the operation will succeed. I think aegis1 gave you the best advice - get another drive. By the way the reason why M$ does not provide the to...
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