Reformat an NTFS disk to FAT32?

[Labitt, Bruce]

This is what I was going to try - save /home and /usr/local to usbdisk
then clean install.  I have not had too much luck with upgrades beyond a
decimal point.  

N.M ==> N.M+1 is ok, N.M ==> N+1.M, little chance for success.

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: gnhlug-discuss-bounces at mail.gnhlug.org
[mailto:gnhlug-discuss-bounces at mail.gnhlug.org] On Behalf Of Jerry
Feldman
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 7:49 AM
To: gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
Subject: Re: Reformat an NTFS disk to FAT32?

On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:28:57 -0400
Bruce Labitt <bruce.labitt at verizon.net> wrote:

> Well SuSE 9.3 doesn't handle it gracefully.  I wouldn't be going
through 
> this grief if it did.  I am trying to get my user data /home archived 
> onto the usb disk so I can install a new distro.
> One of these days I can go doze free, but my current employment
doesn't 
> yet offer that opportunity. :)
> Hence the FAT32 formating.

One solution is to boot a recent live distro, such as knoppix or
ubuntu or Suse 10.3. All three handle ntfs. The issue is the kernel
modules. Also, SuSE releases are upgradable. While I always prefer a
clean install, I have performed upgrade installs on SuSE with no
problems.  Normally, when I set up a system from scratch I always set
up a separate /home file system so I can do a clean install without
blowing away my /home (and /usr/local in my case). 
-- 
--
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846