Convert FAT32 to ext3?

[Christopher Browne]

On 8/15/05, Steve <bassix-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> I have a large FAT32 partition with still a bunch of stuff on it, that I 
> want to convert to ext3. Is this possible, keeping the data on it? I'm 
> trying to avoid burning onto a bunch of DVDs!


No, that sort of thing is not supported.

The problem is that a "FS1 to FS2" convertor would require a complete 
comprehension of BOTH filesystems, which would be orders of magnitude more 
difficult than merely understanding one of them.

Furthermore, if power was interrupted half way through, what would you 
expect would happen? Parts of the partition would be in "FS1" format and 
other parts would be in "FS2" format. And what if both expected to use 
certain portions of the partition to store some of the basic lookup 
information?

Every time you "turn over a stone" you find another set of Really Ugly 
Conditions associated with such a process.

You would be WAY better off grabbing a cheap USB disk (I grabbed a 40GB one 
that runs off USB power for $150 a little while back) and temporarily copy 
the data onto something like that. If you had a Terabyte of data to move 
around, LaCie sells a 1TB FireWire disk array for about $1K USD, at the 
"ridiculously large" side of things :-).


-- 
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absolutely no good." -- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
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