I just ordered a new external hard drive that is 320gb online. I found out that Windows XP cannot format anything over 30gb in FAT32. This harddrive is in NTFS. And it is necessary for me to have this hdd in FAT32. What other ways can I format this into FAT32?
2007-03-18 14:10:52 · 6 answers · asked by Armin 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
There is a way ...
but not for the full 320GB ... FAT32 actually has a limit of 137GB partitions.
WinXP [and Win2000] cannot create or format a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB but can work with them just fine if created in an earlier version of Windows, such as Win98SE or WinME
The way of doing it with a boot floppy for Win98SE or WinME is to boot to it and run FDISK from the A: prompt to create the partition.
I'd go with the WinME version as Win98's FDISK/FORMAT has issues with HDDs over 64GB.
Get the bootdisk here:
http://www.bootdisk.com
FAT32 has a limit of 137GB HDDs.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;263044
source:
http://forum.tweakxp.com/forum/Topic207368-4-1.aspx
regards,
Philip T
2007-03-18 14:27:37 · answer #1 · answered by Philip T 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can still use fat32 on a hard drive that large. You just cannot have a partition larger than 32GB. This means that you'll end up with 10 hard drives with 32GB each. There is no way around this. FAT32 only supports a maximum 32GB partition. If you still want to do this, go into your control panel, double-click administrative tools, and then double click computer management. (xp pro, don't know if this is in home edition). Once in computer management, click disk management. From there you can remove any existing partitions, and create your 32GB partitions. I don't know why you must use FAT32, but ok.
2007-03-18 21:20:43 · answer #2 · answered by Joe M 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You must have a lot of need to run a 320gig harddrive.
You are stuck running it NTFS, I would venture to guess when you install it, if you get a upgrade kit, you might be able to clone your smaller FAT32, but I doubt it.
It wants NTFS, with anything over 30, to make it run faster. If it remained FAT32 your harddrive would run slower. It has to search a larger area, and NTFS is the system it uses.
Sort of like, FAT32= Files all located in One File Cabinet.
NTFS= Files are loacted in 300 files cabinets, in the same room.
Hope that helps.
2007-03-18 21:59:16 · answer #3 · answered by SFC V 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hi. Partition it and use the smaller partition for FAT32.
2007-03-18 21:13:36 · answer #4 · answered by Cirric 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
32 gb is the limit for FAT32 file systems, all you can do is partition it into 10 32GB pieces, and have drives E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N.
2007-03-21 13:08:08 · answer #5 · answered by Tom 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Use a 3rd party program.
2007-03-18 21:15:20 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋