Convert a part of NTFS drive into FAT virtually for testing purposes
Well,I have tried not to make my blog into a tips and tricks one….But this post is essential because it firstly demonstrates the potential of Virtualization.The latest virtualization feature of Win 7 and also a method to convert NTFS to FAT32 without making a separate drive and the overheads associated with it.The last point is included because I have seen many blogs misguiding people about the process of changing particular folder to FAT..which is very risky.
Firstly let me make it clear conversion to FAT 32 is not recommended unless you want for testing purposes which can be done using VHD without disturbing other files.
Start windows 7—>Control Panel—>Administrative tools—> Computer Management
Click on Storage Management on the left pane and you should get a similar interface. The interface shows the drives,the physical and logical partitions.
Look at the RIGHT pane and select more actions
More actions—>Create VHD(Virtual Hard Disk)—>Interface comes up
select the location—> The size and save it
The virtual Hard disk will be created.
A raw unallocated space of 200 MB is shown..(My VHD is of 200 MB)
Right Click on Disk 1—> Initialize Disk—>Partition Style (MBR)
The disk will be initialized and ONLINE
Right click on the VHD and click on simple volume—>Specify Volume Size—>Assign a drive letter to treat it as a drive—>Assign the proper values ..
If you want to create a FAT partition simply make it FAT 32.That’s easy….. No need to make a new drive or convert an entire drive to FAT…. its basically a file which is being treated as a virtual hard drive….So its risk free and if you ever want to delete it juts right click on the VHD and click on DETACH VHD.
Totally risk free and also less ted
ious….This system works irrespective of whether you have your real hard drive in NTFS or FAT…
Using Abhik.Mitra.myThoughts; 