I recently bought a 500GB external hard drive for backing up all my photos. On the advice of a friend I kept the FAT32 that came with the drive.

However on reading several posts on this site and elsewhere I now think I should re-format it to NTFS.

As there is now approximately 30Gb of files on the new drive is doing a quick format OK when re-formatting it?

Thanks

Just do a convert on it, this leaves the data intact.

Details here: How to Convert FAT Disks to NTFS (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984(TechNet.10).aspx)

[QUOTE=Curlyben]Just do a convert on it, this leaves the data intact.

Thanks for your reply.

Perhaps illogically I would prefer to re-format it and start again as knowing my luck converting it would lead to another problem!

If I were to start again with a clean slate would doing a quick format be OK?

ANY format WILL destroy the data already on it.

The convert process is extremely straightforward.

What do you define as OK and not OK? In addition to deleting the file system's allocation tables a Full format scans the entire disk for errors, a Quick does not. Personally, I always do a full format with hard disks because I'm anal that way, although it's going to take awhile for that size disk. Convert, Quick, or Full, you will be OK regardless of method as long as you backup your files first.