Hello - I have a Server 2008 R2 machine that has a FAT32 'OS' partition that seems to be part of the operating system; I'm not sure why it was created as other Server 2008 R2's I have don't have one.  Because it is FAT32 I cannot perform a bare metal/system state backup, so I'd like to covert it to NTFS without data loss or impacting the boot process.  Problem is that the server is now in production and I can't afford an outage if we know that a convert.exe conversion will kill the server.

The FAT32 partition is named 'OS', 2GB (14mb used), marked System, Active, Primary Paritition (no drive letter)

The C: partition is NTFS and marked Boot, Page file, Crash Dump, Primary partition.

So, does anyone know if I can use convert.exe to convert the OS partition to NTFS, without compromising the server boot process?

Thanks!

Kelly

Hello - I have a Server 2008 R2 machine that has a FAT32 'OS' partition that seems to be part of the operating system; I'm not sure why it was created as other Server 2008 R2's I have don't have one.  Because it is FAT32 I cannot perform a bare metal/system state backup, so I'd like to covert it to NTFS without data loss or impacting the boot process.  Problem is that the server is now in production and I can't afford an outage if we know that a convert.exe conversion will kill the server.

The FAT32 partition is named 'OS', 2GB (14mb used), marked System, Active, Primary Paritition (no drive letter)

The C: partition is NTFS and marked Boot, Page file, Crash Dump, Primary partition.

So, does anyone know if I can use convert.exe to convert the OS partition to NTFS, without compromising the server boot process?

Thanks!

VR38DETT is correct.  You just have to insure that there's enough free disk space for the conversion to occur.  The convert command will let you know if you're low on space.

If you have the option, I'd consider nuking the install and rebuilding from scratch with NTFS for the base format. FAT32 doesn't support ACLs and you won't have properly configured security information for the system files.  It's a potential security risk you might consider.

Cheers!!

• Marked as answer by Shaon ShanMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Tuesday, December 18, 2012 5:59 AM

Hi Shaon,

I have win2008 server with SQL 2008 R2. If I change C:(OS) drive from FAT to NTFS, will it hamper SQL and RAID 1?

thanks

Raju Chakraborty

Sr. System Administrator

MAS Intimates Bangladesh Pvt Ltd

I have win2008 server with SQL 2008 R2. If I change C:(OS) drive from FAT to NTFS, will it hamper SQL and RAID 1?

Hello - I have a Server 2008 R2 machine that has a FAT32 'OS' partition that seems to be part of the operating system; I'm not sure why it was created as other Server 2008 R2's I have don't have one.  Because it is FAT32 I cannot perform a bare metal/system state backup, so I'd like to covert it to NTFS without data loss or impacting the boot process.  Problem is that the server is now in production and I can't afford an outage if we know that a convert.exe conversion will kill the server.

The FAT32 partition is named 'OS', 2GB (14mb used), marked System, Active, Primary Paritition (no drive letter)

The C: partition is NTFS and marked Boot, Page file, Crash Dump, Primary partition.

So, does anyone know if I can use convert.exe to convert the OS partition to NTFS, without compromising the server boot process?

Thanks!