Forum Discussion
How to convert NTFS to FAT32 without losing data on Windows 11/10?
If your 4TB hard drive is in NTFS format and Mac cannot directly write to NTFS format, you can indeed consider converting it to FAT32, so that both Windows and Mac can support it. However, direct formatting is definitely not an option because you cannot lose so much data. I have encountered a similar situation before, and later used Partition Manager to directly convert NTFS to FAT32, and the data was not lost at all. Moreover, this tool is easy to use and can be done in a few steps. I recommend you to try it.
I followed this tutorial: (worked for me)
https://www.gicmodo.com/how-to-convert-ntfs-to-fat32
That is incredibly unhelpful considering Microsoft apparently do NOT offer a solution. There is a probably free solution but apparent forum rules prohibit me naming it here even though it is NOT competing against any Microsoft product that is also capable of performing the conversion.
Turned out I could not do the conversion as the partition contained a WIM larger than 4GBytes in size so could not be converted and made operational. In Fact the post marked as a solution links to an article that recommends an external non-microsoft program that doesn't have an option to CONVERT a format and just describes reformatting an NTFS or any partition to a FAT32 one. It is NO solution and is recommending a 3rd party program so should be removed according to your claim!
I think Wiindows should be able to do this anyway by now then having to use a 3rd party app to do it, thats why they make apps like it, I don't see why Windows can't covert NTFS to FAT32 and FAT32 to NTFS without losing data on the drive then having to format it, its possible now so why not add it to Windows, and it would make it a lot easier for Windows users then them looking for app to do it intead for free.
