Converting a FAT32 partition to NTFS in Knoppix...how?

[Spirit Of Atlantis]

Converting a FAT32 partition to NTFS in Knoppix...how?

I know it can be done in windows 2k via command prompt and typing:
X:/fs:ntsf /v (X stands for a drive or partition letter)

I was wondering if this could be done in knoppix.

[j.drake]

I doubt it. The console command would be mkfs -t [filesystemtype], but I've never seen one for NTFS, because linux has never supported NTFS (and vice versa). At a minimum, you would need the 2.6. kernel and captive NTFS running, just to even have NTFS drivers available, but I seriously doubt that the BASH shell even knows what NTFS is.

I guess I'm puzzled as to why you would even want to risk creating this in linux. If you're running Linux exclusively, then NTFS is probably one of the worst fs choices you could possibly make. If you aren't running Linux exclusively, then WTH aren't you doing this in Windows? I guess if you have some kind of a hd deathwish, you could try mkfs -t ntfs and see what happens, but I sure wouldn't do it.

IF you can even do it at all, I suspect you will have to do so as root (but please don't).

jd

[Spirit Of Atlantis]

A partition on one of my hard drives just died...it has to do with the failure of the filesystem.
It's a FAT32 filesystem, someone recommended i convert the filesystem to NTFS via command prompt with the method i posted above, this way i was able to repair the filesystem by converting it without losing my data.
Command Prompt gave an error when i tried to do it...so i wondered if it'll work when doing it under Linux.
What was suppose to happen under windows was that the task got scheduled to convert the partition on the next reboot...i should have had a prompt popup asking me if i wanted to do that, but because windows gave me an error before i got the prompt the task couldn't be scheduled.
So that's why i wanted to try it via Linux.

But i guess if it isn't possible i'll probably have to recover my data via some recovery app and reformat the broken partition.

[j.drake]

Boy, I'd much rather take my chances with scandisk

jd

[rusty]

If you can't run scandisk or another wimpdoze tool (norton etc. ) from a rescue floppy, and if your win partition is still intact you could try booting a knoppix cd and run: fsck /dev/hdx replacing x with the partition containing the FAT filesystem. If it's a dual boot setup just fsck the partition from a command prompt. If the partiton is still FAT and hasn't been converted to NTFS you might have some luck. Check out the fsck man page first.

I guess I would be leery of reformatting a partion as a means of recovering it. GIGO.

HTH

[shah]

I would suggest you try to recover your partition first. This can be done using knoppix. There's a small application call testdisk that can do this. I manage to recover my xp partition when grub srew it up.

Try this on root konsole:
testdisk

You can read more about this utility from :
http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html