How do I go from NTFS to Fat32?

I need to change a computer from win2k back to win98, but the win2k is in ntfs. I need to get it back to fat32 but none of my boot disk will boot the computer.


Any help would be greatly appriciated

 

I know of two ways.... reformat with FAT32 (this WILL LOSE anything that is on the drive)

the only other way I know (There may be others!) is with something like Partition Magic (I use this program religiously!!)

You can convert back and forth while keeping all of your data..

Not Free, but I feel it was worth the money even for a stingy ba$tard like me!!

 

The problem is i have great bootdisk for win98 all the tools you could ever need on them but it is not booting from them.

A: drive is first boot I have checked that, but is not reading the floppys.

It is a new floppy drive and the win98 bootdisk works flawlessly on many other computers.

So I am stummped as to why it will not read in a win2k computer.

 

common somebody knows the answer to this

 

Is the floppy hooked up properly??? all cables hooked up properly..

no ... really.... TRIPLE check that all cables are hooked to the floppy....

 

I know the floppy works I used it yesterday. I guess that leaves me with making a new bootdisk and hoping thats the problem lies within the other floppys.

Thanks guys and/or gals

 

So what's the problem again?

It sounds like you're trying to boot with your floppy, but the PC is letting you. Are you booting to a command prompt, or not? If not, your problem is completely unrelated to your NTFS partition.

If no command prompt/no floppy boot is your problem, check your BIOS settings to be sure that your system is checking the floppy before it checks your HDD. I'm assuming you've done this already because of one of your previous posts. Next, I'd try booting a different floppy. If that didn't work, I'd try a bootable CD or try a different floppy drive, different floppy cable or different floppy power connector, because there is no reason for the behavior you're descibing to happen if everything is configured correctly.

As for converting an NTFS drive to FAT32, apart from commercial software (PartitionMagic) there isn't any way to do it and preserve your data. If you don't care about your data, you can do the following:

Use your 98 Boot disk and format your C: drive. This should work, but if your NTFS drive is not on a DOS partition (which is possible) you'll need to use FDISK to delete the partition, create a new DOS partition, reboot (very important!), and then format the clean partition.

 

If he really has tried everything I suggested in my third paragraph, then I need more information. Because then what he's describing is a hardware failure, not a formatting or boot problem.

 

Sorry for not getting back till today.


Well it seems that the computer gremlins have been at it hard.
Both of my win98 bootdisk which I used prior to working on the win2k computer died. Somehow they both got formated ( I blame the Gremlins for this )

Had to build another 2 win98 bootdisk.

Thanks for the help all, sorry about not geting back sooner and taking up your time.

 

For goodness sake, check the write-protect tags on the floppy.

Anyway aren't floppies old hat now? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2981497.stm

 

Common these disk worked less than 24hrs earlier.

If i wanted a flame I would have asked for it.

Jezz I mean how many tiems have you used a floppy that worked then a few hours later had it not working.

As long as floppys are taken care of they rarely just die like these did.

I mean what the hell are the odds that 2 win98 floppys die at the exact same time?!!