How to reformat bootcamp and change FAT32 Partition to NTFS?

[stuff99]

FAT32's 30 gig is just not enough space to play games. Does anyone know how we can change the FAT32 Parititon to NTFS?

The last time I tried to format my C:\ on the XP side it messed my osx hardrive side too and I lost everything on that end without backing up so Im scared of doing it again.

 

[sickmacdoc]

Post #2 on the FAQ part of the Winclone (the Mac free utility to clone BootCamp partitions) site gives a simple set of instructions for doing that- you can see that page here.

Once you have converted to NTFS, you can clone your BootCamp partition, resize your partition (by removing and repartitioning with the Boot Camp Assistant) and restore your Windows installation into the new larger partition without having to reinstall anything courtesy of WinClone.

BTW- If you want to keep it as FAT32, you are not limited to 32GB BTW- the Boot Camp Assistant will let you set it up much larger by dragging the divider between the BC and OSX partitions when initially setting up the partition. I have a 200Gb BC partition on one drive that is still FAT32. If you clone a FAT32 installation with WinClone though, it can only be restored to a same size partition- attempting to restore it to a larger partition will shrink the partition back to the original size so WinClone is not useful in the enlarging a FAT32 partition scenario. You would have to reinstall Windows and your other software for that. That partition shrinkage will not happen with a clone of an NTFS partition on the other hand.