Format NTFS to exFAT on Ubuntu

I have a hard disk, formatted with NTFS file system.

When I need to use this hard-disk with Ubuntu, and MacOS, I got into the problem. Though Ubuntu supports read-write on NTFS filesystem, MacOS only supports READ content. I can't write to the disk using MacOS. Hence, I decided to convert NTFS to someother compatible filesystem, so that I can use the harddisk on all my OSes.

From some research, I came to know that I can use exFAT filesystem to format my one of the partition. exFAT is supported read-write on MacOS as well, and on Ubuntu or WIndows. Hence, this would solve my problem at hand.

Here is how I converted the NTFS to exFAT:

1. Backup the current disk partition content

   I used rsync to backup content before proceeding with formatting.

   # dry run to see what runs
   rsync -avPn Kailaba/ Shiva\ Gyawali/Kailaba-disk
   
   # remove n and then run -> this will actual run
   rsync -avP Kailaba/ Shiva\ Gyawali/Kailaba-disk
   
   # Now once the files have been transfered to new directory, let's verify it again, and
   # remove the source files
   # dry run first always
   rsync -avPn --remove-source-files Kailaba/ Shiva\ Gyawali/Kailaba-disk
   
   # once you verified, true run
   rsync -avP --remove-source-files Kailaba/ Shiva\ Gyawali/Kailaba-disk
   
   ## NOTE: here, Kailaba/ is my source directory
   ##             Shiva\ Gyawali/Kailaba-disk is my destination directory
   

2. Install exfat on Ubuntu and format with it

   To apply exfat filesystem to this partition, we need to install exfat command and utils on ubuntu. We need to install exfat-fuse and exfat-utils, However on Ubuntu 22 and higher, exfat-utils is replaced by exfatprogs

   # install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
   # However, exfat-utils is now replaced by exfatprogs 
   sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfatprogs
   
   # unmount the partition 
   # here, my targeted partion is /dev/sdb2 -> change according to yours
   sudo umount /dev/sdb2
   
   # After then, we need to format /dev/sdb2 with exfat
   
   sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdb2
   
   ## BUT WAIT, we want to give this partition a name
   sudo mkfs.exfat -n Kailaba /dev/sdb2
   
   # now to mount the partition, we need to create mount point
   mkdir -p /media/<my-dir/Kailaba
   
   sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /media/<my-di>/Kailaba
   
   # run df -hT to see that our filesystem is now changed to exFat from NTFS
   df -hT
   
   
   
   

After our effort, here, we are with exFAT on /dev/sdb2:

In this way, we can format the particular partition to exfat file system, and enjoy read-write on all OSes.

Happy learning.