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I have a 2 TB drive with about 900 GB of data on it. I'd like to convert it to ext3. I understand that there is no way to actually do it. So I'd like to try the following:
- Shrink the 2TB partition to 1TB.
- Create a new partition and format it as ext3.
- Copy the data from the NTFS partition to the ext3 partition (I am not clear on how to do this).
- Once the data is copied, delete the NTFS partition.
- Extend the ext3 partition to include the newly empty space.
My questions:
- Am I going about it the right way? Will this work? Is there a better approach that I should try?
- Is there an app that allows me access to both NTFS and ext3 partitions? I am on Windows 7.
- What apps will I need to do what I outlined?
- What are the chances of me losing data with this approach?
3If you are going to do this you really want up to date backups. And if you have a backup then you can just reformat and restore. (Still, it is interesting to try what you describe and it should work. But not if those 900MB are the only copy of data which you want to keep) – Hennes – 2012-06-02T00:29:35.353
@Hennes The problem is that I do not have another drive that can hold 900GB. – AngryHacker – 2012-06-02T00:31:06.453
1@AngryHacker: Then do exactly what you would do if this drive failed. (But pretend this drive is the replacement.) – David Schwartz – 2012-06-02T00:36:43.123