My hard drives have been set up as FAT32 under Windows XP. Now I wish to convert the drives to NTFS.

I started to convert drive E, which is one of my data drives. I ran

convert E: /fs:ntfs

in a cmd window.
I got the following messages:

The type of the file system is FAT32.
Enter current volume label for drive E: SPARE
Convert cannot run because the volumne is in use by another process. Convert may run if this volumne is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) y
Volume dismounted. All open handles to this volume are now invalid.
Volume SPARE created 10/03/2007 11:06 PM
Volume Serial Number is 1A0A-1934
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
....some statistics regarding the disk space, etc....
Determining disk space required for file system conversion...
Total disk space: 20177608 KB
Free space on volume: 19519952 KB
Space required for conversion: 99037 KB
Converting file system
The volume does not contain a recognized file system.
Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted.
Unable to notify other components that this volume has changed.


I tried to open drive E: and I was told that it was not formatted. So I proceeded to format it as NTFS. It seems to have formatted OK:

Creating file system structures.
Format complete.
20177608 KB total disk space.
20111240 KB are available.

But when I tried to open drive E: again, I got the message:

The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted

So now I am in a situation where I have the E: drive which format recognizes as NTFS, it "can" format it without any problem, but then I cannot open the drive and it tells me that it is not formatted with a recognized file system !!

Have I done something wrong along the way or did I miss any parameters in the convert or format commands?

How do I get my drive E fixed?

Further can I convert a drive from FAT32 to NTFS without reformatting the drive and thus lose my existing data?

And if I want to convert drive C (the primay partition) from FAT32 to NTFS, how do I do it without losing my OS in the process?

Thanks very much

ok.
your e drive is probubly lost, don't fret though you may get luck, i just dont know how

as far as converting, xp comes with a fat(32) - ntfs converter

should be in start >> all programs >> accesories, and no, it shouldnt get rid of your os