Partition magic question

[MrSparkle]

Hey while installing XP on my new machine I split my HD up into all the partitions I needed but I made a mistake and formatted my 1st primary 5GB partition (intended for DOS use if I ever needed it) using the NTFS file system instead of FAT32.

I have Partition magic (bought it today) and just wanted to check with people familiar with this program (and partitioning in general) before I convert the primary 5GB partition to the FAT32 file system.

This is OK to do right?
The 5GB partition is my primary, with all the others being extended logical drives, I put XP on the next 25GB partition, If I change the primary partition back to FAT32 I wont mess up Booting XP or any other programs will I?

Thanks-

[pam123]

Yes Partition Magic can convert an NTFS partition back to FAT 32, but it's also called Partition Tragic for a reason.
Since there's nothing on that partition (?) you can't do any harm with Partition Magic but you could also have simply reformatted it.

edit : It shouldn't affect any of the other partitions but double check to make sure you know where you are.
What often happens is that the wrong partition is designated.

[MrSparkle]

Originally Posted by pam123 It shouldn't affect any of the other partitions but double check to make sure you know where you are. What often happens is that the wrong partition is designated.

I took some good advice off the net and made all of my partitions noticeably different sizes to avoid this problem , thanks for your help!

[mairving]

The problem that always comes up having a 5GB partition as your C drive is that you will always be fighting with running out of space on that drive. I used PM back in it's day but it gets a bit tiresome plus as cheap as hard drives are why not just have 2 drives each with a single partition. It's much easier to manage that way.

[techpro]

Here is a freeware product called gparted its free and could be used as an alternative to partition magic.

[glc]

techpro, does gparted CONVERT filesystems?

[techpro]

No

O I didnt realise you could not convert without losing data. Looks like partition magic is the only tool that can do that.

Thanks for pointing that out.