Hi folks,

just a quick question - does anybody use anything besides partition magic to change the file system on their hard drives?

I got a maxtor external drive that's set up with FAT32 and I want to change it to NTFS.

Suggestions? $69.00 seems a bit steep to do a one-time change.

Thanks a bunch!! Maybe this is built into XP and I just don't know where to find it.

Thanks again,
Milt

WinXP uses the "convert" command for a one-time conversion to NTFS. Look it up in help.

For more options, right-click on "my computer", then choose "manage", then "disk management" under "storage". There you'll find all kinds of options to convert and partition HDs.

Is this a new drive, or at least an old one with data that you don't need? If you just want to wipe it clean, all you have to do is right click on the drive and choose "Format" for a simple conversion to NTFS.

That said, if there is data on that drive that you want to save, you're going to back it up before you attempt the conversion anyway, right? So, once you back it up, you might as well wipe the drive clean and do a full format to NTFS, anyway, right?