Ubuntu – I want to reformat the home partition from ext3 to ntfs

12.04formathome-directorypartitioning

I have three partitions: one with Ubuntu 12.04, the other is a data partition (the largest of the three) and the last one has Windows 7.

First I installed Ubuntu, then I formatted the data partition as ext3 and chose it as my home folder. Like a month after I installed Windows 7 on the third partition, and realized that it can't read the data partition (ext3). So I just want to reformat it from ext3 to ntfs with gparted.

I thought of just copying the entire home folder (with hidden and system files) to an external hard drive I have, unmount home, reformat the partition to nfts, and just copy everything back and mount again. But I don't know if this will be the wise thing to do.

PLease help.

Best Answer

Converting the /home folder to NTFS is neither wise, nor recommended, and not possible!

The home folder contains user configurations as well as user data. Ubuntu maintains user specific permissions for folders and files. The permissions format used by Ubuntu is specific to ext3, ext4 formats.

In other words, Ubuntu cannot preserve folder and file access permissions in an NTFS, or any of the Windows partition formats.

Once you format the /home partition to NTFS and copy everything back, you won't be able to mount it as /home as the partition will not meet the requirements of Ubuntu.

See Do I need Intel Smart Response when installing Ubuntu? for a solution on how you can link your data folders in another (NTFS) partition to your home partition. You will need to shrink the /home partition and create a new NTFS partition and copy the data folders, like Documents, Pictures, Music etc. there.

Hope this helps

Yes! You can copy the old home folder to the new partition (via an external hard drive)

But... what about file permissions?

The issue is if your external hard drive is formatted for Windows incompatibilities, then it will not respect the file ownership and permissions when you copy them to the external drive.

For most files this will not matter. However, for some files like ssh private key, permissions are important and without the right kind of permissions the key will not work.

Solution 1

Format the external drive to ext4 the default format used by Ubuntu. The disadvantage is, all the data in the external drive will be lost when you reformat it to ext4. On the plus side, you will have an external drive specifically for transferring data between two Ubuntu (any Linux) computers.

Drag and drop or copy paste by Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V in Nautilus would only work if you are the only user of the computer, and there is only one user account (yours).

If the computer has other user accounts you want to copy using the terminal. Say your external hard drive is mounted as /media/$USER/USB2TB. Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and enter:

sudo cp -rp /home /media/$USER/USB2TB/home

Instead of the cp command you may want to use rsync like:

sudo rsync -aXS --exclude='/*/.gvfs' /home/. /media/home/.

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6339287/copy-or-rsync-command for various answers about difference between cp and rsync.

In all cases, remember to eject or Safely Remove the hard drive and WAIT till it is safe to unplug.

Solution 2

Use the default Backup software that comes with Ubuntu to backup your home folder. Make sure the backup target is the external drive. This ensures the ownership and permission data is preserved even if the drive is formatted FAT32 or NTFS.

Solution 3

Put everything in a compressed tarball. Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and enter:

tar czvf /media/$USER/USB2TB/myhomebackup.tar.gz /home/$USER

where $USER is your user ID for this computer. The tar options czvf does the following:

c creates a new archive
z filters the archive through gzip to make it compressed
v verbosely list files processed
f <name of archive> use archive file name <name of archive>

To overwrite or not?

Since this is the same machine, with no new hardware, I would overwrite the existing files. First, with a brand new install, there is no "real" data in your home folder. Second, overwriting the hidden files brings back the configurations, bookmarks etc. from your old install.

I find it easier to go through the hidden folders and files (the file and folder names that start with a .dot) later and delete the ones that are not needed. For example, if I don't need the program foo any more and did not install foo in the new installation, I would delete the folder .foo in my home folder. Even if I don't delete .foo it does not take up a lot of space. If I decide I need to use foo again some day, the config will be there.

Can it be done without a new install?

Yes! You can move the home folder to a new partition. There is an excellent guide about it at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving

I strongly advise that you make a backup (or two backups!) of your pictures, songs, or whatever you hold dear to your heart, before you try this.

Mistakes happens. If you make one, your data could be gone forever. So, be safe and keep at least two backups of important files before you try any of this.