How can I convert a drive from ext4 to NTFS without losing the data?

I have a hard drive from an Ubuntu system that contains only media files. I would like to move that drive to a Windows 10 computer without losing all of the media. Is this possible, and if so, how can it be done?

I don't want to just mount the ext4 drive in Windows. I want to convert the drive from ext4 to NTFS.

There is no way to convert a drive directly from ext4 to NTFS file system without losing all the data that is stored on the drive. All of the data on a drive that is not backed up and stored somewhere else will be lost when the drive is reformatted.

If you have sufficient unused space on the drive, create a second partition, format it to NTFS, and copy the files to the NTFS partition. You could then delete the original files and the ext4 partition, and append the space to the NTFS partition, essentially converting the entire drive from ext4 to NTFS.

If there isn't sufficient available space on the drive to do this, you could copy the files to another computer/drive, format the original drive as NTFS, and copy the files back to the newly formatted drive.

How to change the file system

The most convenient way is to use another drive:

1. Copy the data you want to keep to another drive (for example an external (USB or eSATA) drive and check that they are there.

2. Create the partition and file system that you want (alias reformat the drive).

   • You can use gparted when booted from a live Ubuntu system (from USB or DVD),

   • or do it with Windows tools (if Windows is available and you want a Windows file system).

3. Copy the data from the other drive to your new partition and file system.

Backup your data

If you have no external drive that is big enough, it is a good idea to get one now, and continue to use it to take regular backups of everything that you cannot afford to lose.