Convert NTFS to FAT32??

[Mark Morb]

Hi,

I'm intending on buying an iMac in a few days, just waiting for Macworld to come and go.

My question is this. I currently have 3 external Hard Drives on my PC. 2 x 360GB and 1 x 500GB. These contain MP3's, Photos/Videos, FLAC (Uncompressed Audio) respectively. Each disc is probably around 2 thirds full. They are all in formatted to NTFS.

Is there anyway that I can convert them to FAT32 without losing the Data so that the iMac can Read and Write to them when I swap them over to the Mac? (and is this even a good idea as I understand that FAT32 is extremely inefficient with volumes of this size)

The only alternative I can think off is to copy everything from the disks to the internal mac drive, reformat the USB drive for the mac and then copy everything back...sounds like a pain in the ass!!

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark Morb

 

[heatmiser]

You can do it with PartitionMagic in Windows XP. There is no equivalent (as usual) in OS X.

 

[Eidorian]

You can read off of NFTS with stock OS X.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

That might be an option short of copying off and reformatting.

 

[SDub90]

Easiest solution would be to install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G on your mac.

The 4GB file size limit always comes back to kick me square in the ass every time I switch my drives over to FAT32. Something to consider.