External hard disk partition changed from NTFS to FAT32

[Ishankavinda]

I tried to access a laptop hard disk using an adapter from a laptop. Once or twice It was successful but last time I checked it showed me files and folders with unreadable characters and it's partitions are also gone. When I checked its format I found out that it has changed from NTFS to FAT32. When I try to open any file or folder it gives an error message saying it's not accessible and the filename or directory name is incorrect. I tried reading another hard disk to see if it's something to do with my adapter but they are all working fine. Any clue on what happened or to recover the data unharmed?. Thanks

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Ishankavinda,

That is really unpleasant.
I believe you will need to use some partition/data recovery tool and see whether you will be able to recover the data stored on the drive. There are quite a lot of threads on that in the forum.

Check this out for example: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/262280-32-partition-recovery

Keep in mind that you shouldn't overwrite the data on the drive in some way.

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

 

[Colif]

When converting NTFS to FAT32, you have only two methods. One is to format your NTFS partition. If there is enough free disk space in other partitions, you can copy data to free space and then format the NTFS partition to FAT32. After you reformat your previous NTFS partition to FAT32 partition, you can copy the data back. In addition, you can back up the blank FAT partition to an image file, then it's convenient for you to convert partition format next time. And the other way is to use a third party NTFS to FAT32 converter.

http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/convert-file-system/convert-ntfs-to-fat32.htm

unless you did either of those, I don't know how this could happen.

Its possible the partition table is corrupted I guess.

 

[Ishankavinda]

Hi there Ishankavinda,

That is really unpleasant.
I believe you will need to use some partition/data recovery tool and see whether you will be able to recover the data stored on the drive. There are quite a lot of threads on that in the forum.

Check this out for example: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/262280-32-partition-recovery

Keep in mind that you shouldn't overwrite the data on the drive in some way.

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

Recovery tool will not be an option because what I want to recover badly are some projects which consists large number of files. Even if I could recover everything recovering them with different names in different places will not be any use 🙁

 

[Ishankavinda]

When converting NTFS to FAT32, you have only two methods. One is to format your NTFS partition. If there is enough free disk space in other partitions, you can copy data to free space and then format the NTFS partition to FAT32. After you reformat your previous NTFS partition to FAT32 partition, you can copy the data back. In addition, you can back up the blank FAT partition to an image file, then it's convenient for you to convert partition format next time. And the other way is to use a third party NTFS to FAT32 converter.

http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/convert-file-system/convert-ntfs-to-fat32.htm

unless you did either of those, I don't know how this could happen.

Its possible the partition table is corrupted I guess.

I didn't even think about formatting. I can't even imagine what kind of thing possibly caused this to happen. I am not familiar with partition table or whether I can recover data by recovering it. I'll research into it as well thanks ☺