Arch Linux

Ozaki

Member

Registered: 2022-08-17

Posts: 2

eXFAT to NTFS ( External Disk )

Good day everyone,

Can someone point me to the right direction of how to convert one external hard drive with content inside from exFAT to NTFS without loosing the data?

I don't know why but a lot of times when i'm trying to copy files from laptop to ext disk i'm getting error " Could not make folder /run/media/**** ".
Sometimes i copy one file and after this same error.
I'm using arch with KDE + Dolphin

bluscandth

Member

Registered: 2022-07-07

Posts: 7

Re: eXFAT to NTFS ( External Disk )

1. Backup data to different partition.
2. Format to NTFS
3. Move data back to new NTFS

Ozaki

Member

Registered: 2022-08-17

Posts: 2

Re: eXFAT to NTFS ( External Disk )

1. Backup data to different partition.
2. Format to NTFS
3. Move data back to new NTFS

That's why i mention 'convert'. There is no free space to transfer the data.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,491

Re: eXFAT to NTFS ( External Disk )

There is no free space to transfer the data.

W/o sufficient free space it's not gonna happen.
FAT and NTFS are fundamentally different concepts to store data, even w/o a full blown backup you'll need some considerable free space to park data while restructuring the filesystem.

Windows has a dedicated tool that gets away w/ less than a full backup, but even it will require some ratio of the used disk space as free space in order to maneuver the  data around (and causes vastly more IO operations)
The manual approach would be to move FAT partition to the end of the disk, create an NTFS partition at the beginning and grow that while moving data from the FAT partition and shrinking the latter.

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Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: eXFAT to NTFS ( External Disk )

1. Backup data to different partition.
2. Format to NTFS
3. Move data back to new NTFS

That's why i mention 'convert'. There is no free space to transfer the data.

If you don't already have a backup then the data isn't important. Just reformat the drive.

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No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

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