Michael Stevens wrote:

> In news:OUx%23BsFDGHA.516@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl,
> Gerry Cornell <gcjc@tenretnitb.com> replied with a ;-)
>
>>Steve
>>
>>Do you think "No" is a canned response? An unhelpful response
>>perhaps!
>
>
> Well it is a XP newsgroup and Carey is pretty focused on the newsgroup.
> XP cannot convert NTFS to FAT 32.
>
> Technically he is right as far as XP is concerned. It takes third party
> software to convert NTFS to FAT 32 and many of you Carey bashers bash him
> for suggesting retail versions over OEM. Why wouldn't you bash him for
> suggesting paying for a third party application to do something XP can't do
> when asked in a Windows XP newsgroup?

He has frequently recommend 3rd party solutions, even PM. I also
understand his reasons for recommending retail over OEM. I may not
always agree, but so what?

> Also, I have tested the PM NTFS to FAT 32 converter and have about a 75 %
> success in the process.

This confirms what I suspected. I wouldn't trust it either, at least not
on a system partition, which is why I recommended a second drive
formatted FAT32 instead.

> If the hard drive is compromised with bad sectors, it is not likely to
> complete favorably. This is one hard drive process I would not try without a
> backup of important data that cannot be retrieved from other media.

Definitely back up. My philosophy has always been if it's not backed up
then it's not worth saving in the first place.

Steve N.