PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Converting a FAT16 volume to FAT32

There are few circumstances in which converting an existing FAT16 volume to FAT32 makes sense, but there are a couple of ways to do it if the need arises.

To use the bundled Windows 98 utility, choose Start → Programs → Accessories → System Tools → Drive Converter (FAT32). Drive Converter converts FAT16 to FAT32, but not the converse, so be absolutely sure you want to take this step before you start the program. If you change your mind later, you’ll have to repartition and reformat the drive to revert to FAT16. Converting to FAT32 (or attempting to do so) may cause the following problems:

You can no longer dual-boot the system between Windows 98 and Windows NT 4

Although the bulk of the Windows NT 4 files may reside on a separate partition, Windows NT boots from the FAT16 partition. If you convert that partition to FAT32, Windows NT will not be able to access it and cannot boot.

You can no longer uninstall Windows 98

Because Windows 98 is the only current version of Windows that can access FAT32 partitions, converting a volume to FAT32 means that you can run only Windows 98 or higher on that partition.

Some of your programs may no longer run

Most applications do not care whether they are running on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume. A few, however—notably, disk utilities—do not operate or operate improperly on a FAT32 volume. Drive Converter attempts to detect incompatible applications, and notifies you before doing the conversion if it finds such programs, but ...