Is it safe to convert NTFS to ext2 with anyconvertfs?

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I want to convert an NTFS filesystem (never used with Windows, and no use of any special features - just a bunch of files. Not even any hard links / symlinks / etc.

I know it's possible to make the conversion using anyconvertfs, as suggested here:

Is it possible to convert an ntfs partition to ext3?

but - how safe is this? Can I trust anyconvertfs with my files and, assuming the machine doesn't crash, be secure in the knowledge I will not lose any data in the process? It's not an Ubuntu package, which makes me a bit worried.

einpoklum

Posted 2018-01-02T23:54:57.827

Reputation: 5 032

3I assume you have backups? If you don’t you should create a backup – Ramhound – 2018-01-03T00:26:18.630

@Ramhound: If I had backups I wouldn't really care about in-place conversion, I would just create a new FS and populate it from backup. – einpoklum – 2018-01-03T01:04:08.170

5Even if it were safe (not saying it is or isn’t) you should have a backup of your data. – Ramhound – 2018-01-03T01:07:18.700

From what I read it just creates a loop device using sparse file feature of the source file system and mount it, then it copies the files to the dest filesystem and remove the source after all has been done – phuclv – 2018-01-03T01:43:12.793

@LưuVĩnhPhúc: THat can't be it. – einpoklum – 2018-01-03T02:18:46.693

@einpoklum yes, that's basically how all the tools to convert filesystem inplace using sparse files like fstransform and anyconvertfs do https://askubuntu.com/a/900028/253474

– phuclv – 2018-01-03T03:29:59.083

Because they based on convertfs which is the first solution to do that succesfully It creates a sparse image of a block device, mkfs a secondary filesystem on it, mounts it, moves files from the primary filesystem to the mounted image and then maps the image to the device

– phuclv – 2018-01-03T03:31:19.987

Answers

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No disk operation converting filesystems can be deemed safe. Most will work most of the time, but horror stories abound. You need to back up anything you are worried about loosing before proceeding.

Even worse, while it works, NTFS support for Linux is not great - I believe it was reverse engineered, and both major Linux solutions miss some functionality.

davidgo

Posted 2018-01-02T23:54:57.827

Reputation: 49 152

With regard to the last line: true, but we are talking about reading files from NTFS, in this case, not writing to NTFS. It is a solved problem and also quite easy to implement. – Andrea Lazzarotto – 2018-01-04T11:12:57.000

Asked: 2018-01-02T23:54:57.827

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Active: 2018-01-03T08:57:10.813