How do I convert FAT32 to ext3 ?

[Terry Linhardt]

Jonathan Berry wrote:

>On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:05:23 -0600, Aleksandar Milivojevic
><amilivojevic at pbl.ca> wrote:
>  
>
>>Terry Linhardt wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>If I understand, I can do an fdisk, re-write the partition as a Linux
>>>partition, and then do an an mkfs -j .
>>>      
>>>
>>Yes.  That is exactly what you need to do.  I don't know how USB storage
>>devices are organized (if they have partitions at all, if they are
>>optional or mandatory).  It might be that you don't need partitions
>>defined on the USB device at all, in which case you could just create
>>file system on it, as you would do if it was floppy.
>>
>>If there's partition table on the USB device, than you can simply change
>>partition's system ID from FAT32 to Linux (83) using fdisk.  If fdisk
>>prints bunch of errors, when you start it, than there wasn't a partition
>>table on the device (just like on good old floppies).  In that case,
>>forget about fdisk part, just use mkfs to build file system.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>To me it sounded like this is a USB hard drive, but that has not been
>made clear.  If it is a USB *storage device* (aka, flash disk) then I
>would be careful about messing with the partitions on it.  I know one
>that I have is setup strangely, but it may need to be that way in
>order to function.  It has support for passwords and other stuff
>(which I'm not using) and fdisk-ing it *might* mess something up.
>If this is a USB *hard disk* you should be able to partition and
>format it like any other hard disk.  I guess I could be wrong here (I
>don't have a USB hard disk), but it makes sense to me that it should
>be the same.  At in this case, yes, Terry is correct: fdisk to change
>partition type (or repartition as desired), and make the file system
>(I've always used "mke2fs -j" but it sounds like "mkfs -j" is the same
>thing).
>
>Jonathan
>
>  
>
Yes, it's a 160 GB *hard disk*. Actually, I've already done the fdisk 
and mkfs, and the results are fine.

That being said, could you define the difference between a USB *storage 
device* (flash disk) and a *hard drive*? Is a  "flash disk" the small 
"stick" devices that go into a USB slot and hold (generally) 256 Meg - 1 
GB of data?  The reason I ask...I have one of those, and they seem to 
work equally well on both XP machines or with Fedora.  However, when I 
got this 160 GB hard drive I found it was FAT 32 and I could not write 
to it without the conversion steps I went through. (fdisk and mkfs).

Your thoughts??