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Dislike NTFS? Go back to FAT32

Created: 01 Jan 2004 ::: Last updated: 01 Aug 2007
Applies to: _ Win95 _ Win98 _ WinMe _ Win 2000/NT X WinXP _ WinVista _ MacOS

By Andy Walker

This is a continuation of the article called "Hate Windows XP? Wipe it out!"

Since you have NTFS as a file allocation system on your hard drive, and you need to revert back to FAT32, here's what you need to do:

In order to remove the NTFS file system, you will need to reformat your hard disk so it can use the FAT or FAT32 file system.

There are two ways to do it by using the Windows XP Startup disks or (if your computer supports a bootable CD-ROM) — most computers built since 2001 have this feature — use the Recovery Console tool on the Windows XP CD-ROM.

Remember, reformatting a hard disk deletes all of the data that is on it, so make sure that you back up your data before you reformat the disk. That data is unrecoverable afterwards.

To use the Recovery Console to reformat a drive, follow these steps:

Start the computer by using the Windows XP CD-ROM or the start-up disks. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press F10.

In the Recovery Console, specify the appropriate installation, and then log on by using your Administrator password (and not the password of your spouse or kids. if you are the only user of the computer then you are the administrator...so just log in as you would normally).

Next, type:

map

and hit the ENTER key.

Note the drive that you want to reformat. The drive letters may be different in the Recovery Console from what they are in Windows XP, but if you want to reformat the C: drive, it's the largest.

Next, type:

format C:/fs:fat32

Or if you don't want to format C, use the drive letter of the hard drive that you want to format. Hit your ENTER key.

Next, type:

y

Then press ENTER to continue. When the formatting process is finished, type

exit

and then press the ENTER key to restart the computer.