Microsoft KB Archive/311393

= &quot;Insufficient Disk Space for Conversion&quot; Error Message When You Convert a Disk from FAT to NTFS =

Article ID: 311393

Article Last Modified on 2/28/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Small Business Server 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q311393



For a Microsoft Windows XP version of this article, see 323563.



SYMPTOMS
When you attempt to use the Convert.exe tool to convert a file system from the FAT16 or FAT32 file system to the NTFS file system, you may receive the following error message even though there is plenty of available free disk space:

The type of the file system is FAT32.

Determining disk space required for file system conversion...

Insufficient disk space for conversion

The conversion failed.





CAUSE
Convert.exe uses specific work areas that are required to create the new NTFS master file table (MFT) during the conversion. The error message can occur if the FAT partition that you are trying to convert contains bad sectors in this work area at the end of the partition.

To verify that this is the cause of the error message, run the chkdsk /f /r command on the volume that you want to convert. If the output shows that there are bad sectors, this is likely to be the cause of the error message. The following sample output shows bad sectors in the partition:

C:\chkdsk f: /f /r The type of the file system is FAT32. Volume Serial Number is 00CF-0411 Windows is verifying files and folders... File and folder verification is complete. Windows is verifying free space... Free space verification is complete. Windows has checked the file system and found no problem. 19,525,456 KB total disk space. 528,064 KB in 154 hidden files. 5,808 KB in 361 folders. 420,672 KB in 3,532 files. 32 KB in bad sectors. (Note the bad sectors.) 18,570,864 KB are available.

16,384 bytes in each allocation unit. 1,220,341 total allocation units on disk. 1,160,679 allocation units available on disk.

If you are running Windows 2000, note the additional possible cause that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

271644 Cannot Convert FAT32 to NTFS with IDE Drive Larger Than 20 GB



RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, you must back up or move all of the data on the FAT32 volume, reformat the volume with NTFS, and then restore your data.



MORE INFORMATION
Note that the error message that is described at the beginning of this article can also occur if the volume that you are onverting is in use, cannot be dismounted, and requires a reboot. In this case, Autoconv.exe reports the error the next time you restart the computer.

Keywords: kberrmsg kbprb KB311393

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