Ext4 is a journaling file system as well as one of the greatest Linux file systems. It can support volume size up to 1EB and single file size up to 16TB. NTFS is a New Technology File System developed by Microsoft, which is often used by most Windows systems.
If you need to read the Ext4 drive on Windows, you need to format Ext4 to NTFS. However, a lot of users want to convert Ext4 to NTFS without formatting. Here’s a true example from the superuser.com forum:
Convert Ext4 hard drive to NTFS format without formatting. I have a 1TB external hard drive with about 800 GB of data in Ext4 format. Is there a way of converting it to NTFS format without having to format hence losing my data?https://superuser.com/questions/758930/convert-ext4-hard-drive-to-ntfs-format-without-formatting
Can You Convert Ext4 to NTFS Without Losing Content
Can I convert Ext4 to NTFS without formatting? Unfortunately, there is no way to convert a drive directly from Ext4 to NTFS without formatting. However, you can back up the Ext4 drive to a location before formatting the drive to NTFS. To know more details, please keep reading the following part.
How to Convert Ext4 to NTFS on Windows 10/11
Here we summarize 3 simple ways to change Ext4 to NTFS on Windows 11/10. If you want to convert Ext4 to NTFS without data loss, we highly recommend you move to the 3rd method.
Way 1. Format Ext4 to NTFS Using DiskPart
Diskpart is a well-known Windows built-in disk partition utility used to format/create/delete partitions, online/offline disk, wipe disks, etc. Here’s how to format Ext4 to NTFS using DiskPart.
Step 1. Press the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box, and then type diskpart in it and press Enter. Then click on Yes to open the tool in Command Prompt.
Step 2. In the elevated Command Prompt window, type the following commands in order and press Enter after each one to change exFAT to NTFS using CMD.
- list disk
- select disk * (* represents the disk that contains the Ext4 partition)
- list partition
- select partition * (* represents the partition number of Ext4)
- format fs=ntfs quick
Way 2. Format Ext4 to NTFS Using Disk Management
Besides, you can use another Windows partition manager – Disk Management. This utility can help you change Ext4 to NTFS as well.
Step 1. Press Win + X to open the context menu and select Disk Management.
Step 2. Right-click the Ext4 partition and select Format.
Step 3. Select NTFS from the File System drop-down menu and click on OK. Then click on OK to further confirm this formatting.
Way 3. Convert Ext4 to NTFS Without Data Loss Using MiniTool Partition Wizard
How to convert Ext4 to NTFS without losing content on Windows 10/11? MiniTool Partition Wizard can help you do that easily. This powerful partition manager can copy the Ext4 partition to another drive or backup, and then format it to NTFS. Besides, it can extend/resize/move partitions, convert FAT to NTFS without data loss, change cluster size, and more.
MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Step 1. Launch the MiniTool software to enter its main interface, select the Ext4 partition from the disk map, and click on Copy Partition from the left panel.
Step 2. Select the unallocated space to save the Ext drive and click on Next.
Step 3. Then you can adjust the location of the partition and click on Finish > Apply to execute the operation.
Step 4. Now, you can format the Ext4 partition to NTFS. To do so, select the Ext4 partition and click on Format Partition from the left action panel. Then select NTFS from the File System drop-down menu and click on OK > Apply to execute the operation.
How to convert Ext4 to NTFS without data loss? According to the above information, I believe you have known the answer. If you have any questions about the topic, please share them with us in the following comment area.