what do I risk if I format my external hard drive to ntfs?

Question

I have a new Transcend 2TB external hard drive (StoreJet 35T3), which I wanted to start using for editing videos.
Lately, while trying to import a video file I had an error: The editing software told me that my drive was full and that it can't import the file. However I had more than 1.5TB of free space left. the problem kept recurring and after some research on the internet I discovered that hard drives, which are formatted to FAT 32 can't work with files that are bigger than 4GB.
I figured out that this might be my problem and that it might be good to reformat my drive to NTFS. I found a method online which sounds simple. It simply involves typing a convert command in command prompt. I want to try this. Of course I am going to back up my data, but I am a little afraid that I might be risking to somehow ruin the hard drive by doing this. Is it safe to do this or should I keep my hands of it? And is there maybe a safer/ better way to do it?

Answer 1

You can't damage your hard drive simply by formatting it. Converting has always worked for me too without data loss or corruption. But I would recommend just formatting it normally to NTFS and then putting all the data back on there.



And yes, your problem is probably because of what you read. FAT32 doesn't support files above 4gb in size.



There are plenty of tools out there that let you alter your hard drive easily and safely;



Acronis Disk Director,

Paragon

EasUS Partition Master



All offer free trials I think.



But the command prompt or simply right clicking your drive and > Format.. works perfectly well.

Answer 2

No probs, if had back up all your data.

NTFS is faster than FAT

Answer 3

This topic is worth more attention