# FAT32 to exFAT



## techlearner10000 (Apr 17, 2012)

Hello, find below the technical specs of my system. What's not shown below is that I also have a 2TB external harddrive, that I have been copying my DVD collection to, for backup storage, and also for viewing on my television, via a Apple Airport Extreme Wireless router attached to the external harddrive, and a Control4 Media Centre. I am copying television DVDs (which are about 1.8 GB an episode), and have just started trying to copy movie DVDs (which are over 4 GB a movie). As the external harddrive is in FAT32 format, it stops copying once the file reaches 4GB, giving me incomplete movies. I know I can get around this problem by formatting the external harddrive as exFAT. I know I CANNOT convert the external harddrive to NTFS format, because NTFS is not compatible with my Apple Airpor Extreme router.

My question is, is there anyway I can "convert" the external harddrive from FAT32 to exFAT instead of "formatting"? I have a lot of television shows already saved on the external harddrive, that would be deleted if I formatted. Or is my only option to move all of those television shows onto my laptop temporarily, format the external harddrive, and then move everything back from the laptop to the external harddrive? If so, will the shows that I copied when the harddrive was in FAT32 format, still work when the harddrive has been formatted to exFAT? 

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 4046 Mb
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6470M, 1024 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 456223 MB, Free - 307325 MB; E: Total - 15291 MB, Free - 2285 MB; F: Total - 5103 MB, Free - 2178 MB;
Motherboard: Hewlett-Packard, 1618
Antivirus: McAfee VirusScan Enterprise, Updated: Yes, On-Demand Scanner: Enabled


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## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

have a quick read here
http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/889586-solved-can-i-convert-fat32.html
and
http://rshullic.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/the-exfat-conversion-issue-exfat-vs-fat32-vs ntfs/

personally i would not take a chance any glitch can happen - so i would copy to laptop


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## techlearner10000 (Apr 17, 2012)

Hello, the first link you mentioned talks about converting to NTFS, which (as I mentioned) I cannot do, as it is not compatible with Apple Airport Extreme router, which I will use to watch the movies on my television. The second link you provided basically says that I have to move the files, format the drive and move the files back, and that the files should be fine, which is good. I assume then that I cannot "convert" the drive to exFAT, as I could for NTFS (i.e. I have no choice but to format)?


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## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

personally even if i could i would not take the chance


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