Fat32 Format
- Thread starter Music Man
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errrm
Windows?
Right click on drive, select format
Linux?
mkdosfs /dev/whatever1
no external software required whatsoever.
you can even do the partitioning with windows
control panels>admin tools>disc management (may be inside computer management, can't remember)
And Linux
cfdisk /dev/whatever
Be aware that FAT32 will reject/corrupt files over 4GB.
Also be aware that if you google for something to perform a core OS function like formatting, you WILL get more than you bargined for!!
Windows?
Right click on drive, select format
Linux?
mkdosfs /dev/whatever1
no external software required whatsoever.
you can even do the partitioning with windows
control panels>admin tools>disc management (may be inside computer management, can't remember)
And Linux
cfdisk /dev/whatever
Be aware that FAT32 will reject/corrupt files over 4GB.
Also be aware that if you google for something to perform a core OS function like formatting, you WILL get more than you bargined for!!
So can i format the whole 160 this way ?
Windows XP won't format a FAT32 partition over 32GB, not sure about Vista or Windows 7.
If you are using XP I'd suggest http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm - I used this to format a 1TB external to a single FAT32 partition. As mentioned, individual files can't be over 4GB.
yes it will, just not through disc management
in cmd..
format x : <space> /fs:fat32
why do you want to use fat32 though? ntfs is far better
Because i am using a external disk back up , so i can play my large music collection for my PS3 , does not like Ntfs
The 360 and the PS3 don't support NTFS unfortunately, so you have to format externals / etc as FAT32 - it's a PITA.
Did you try that external program I linked, fat32format?Just had a try , you cannot format to Fat32 via Vista only exFAT
I am using Vista not Windows XP
It says it should work on Vista..
"Formatting works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 and Vista. Note that Windows 9x/Me are not supported and do not work, but you can use the format.exe supplied with them instead"
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I wouldn't say it was a "nightmare", it takes just a few seconds if you use fat32format as monkehh advised you...I cannot believe to format a hard drive to Fat32 such a nightmare
- Download fat32format (23kb zipfile), unzip it into your Windows\system32 folder
- Open a command prompt
- Type fat32format X: [enter] (where X is drive letter)
Job done (and yes, it works with Vista x86 and x64)
/edit: you may need to go into Disk Management first to create a partition on the new drive and assign it a drive letter, but that's the only (slight) complication I can think of...
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I had the same problem, I needed to format a 500 gb drive for my xbox360. The dos method was slow and didn't work over 32gb. The solution for me was a nice program called PC CLONE EX. A lite version came with the drive ( should have read the manual first ). It worked first time and really fast.The drive was the LG XD2.
IIRC you have to specify block/sector size or some such thing with FAT32 to be able to format larger drive sizes. And technically, this is using the command prompt rather than DOS - they're different things!
Fair enough!