How to format external hard drive to FAT32 in Windows

Posted on September 20, 2008 at 5:31 am

Trying to format a large external USB or Firewire hard drive to the FAT32 file system? Can’t do it? Only see an option for formatting the drive using the NTFS file format? Well if you answered yes any of those questions, then you’re at the right place.

I was recently trying to format my 1 TB MyBook external hard drive in Windows XP to FAT32 instead of the overly forced-upon NTFS format. Why? Well because I needed to connect it to a NAS device and the NTFS permissions were causing the NAS not to be able to access the drive. Simple solution is to use FAT32, no security, no problems. Though it’s sometimes useful to format a USB drive in NTFS format.

Also, formatting a drive in FAT or FAT32 will allow it to be read by other operating systems, such as Mac, Linux, and older versions of Windows such as Windows 98.

Unfortunately, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 will only format a removable drive in FAT32 if it’s less than 32GB! Hmmm…that pretty much cuts out ALL modern external hard drives!

However, Windows can format a drive that is larger than 32GB in FAT32, but you have to use the DOS command prompt. However, if you have a drive that is 1TB or larger, you may still get an error saying “The volume is too big for FAT32”.

In that case, you can use a free program called SwissKnife that will allow you to format an external hard drive that is up to 2TB in size. Let’s go through both methods. In case you are having problems getting your external hard drive to show up in Windows, read my article on how to change the drive letter for an external drive in Windows.

Format external drive in FAT32 using DOS

Open a command window by going to Start, then Run and typing in CMD.

Now type in the following command at the prompt:

format /FS:FAT32 X:

Replace the letter X with the letter of your external hard drive in Windows. Windows will go ahead and begin formatting the drive in FAT32!

Format external hard drive in FAT32 using SwissKnife

SwissKnife is a nifty little program that is completely free and that you can use to format many types of external drives such as USB, Firewire, PCMIA, SATA and SCSI. You can also use it to create partitions on an external hard drive and it formats faster than Windows.

So next time you want to format a hard drive in FAT32 and Windows only gives you an option for NTFS, make sure to follow one of the two method mentioned above. Enjoy!

p/s: credit goes to source.

Chrono Trigger DS : Worth to try?

Im looking for RPG to be play after I completed my Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess...Chrono Trigger DS sounds good?

Prison Break, Heroes and Supernatural feedback

My own short feedback on ..

Prison Break S4 :

- Season 4 sucks to the max...the story line TOO blunt...Season 1 still the very best season for Prison Break
- EP23-24 (Final Break) was an epic failure...I am expecting something better than Season 1's prison-break...Im glad Prison Break ends at Season 4..I cannot stand to see another epic failure from Prison Break.

Heroes S3 :

- The story line never fail to thrill me, expect that only Sylar is the last-man-standing villain..
- I can never really predict what's next on Heroes...which makes it totally cool (for me).
- On upcoming season...I sense cliche but...Heroes series always make the unexpected..

Supernatural S4 :

- Too cliche..same old enemies/tactic ...and only a little stories on Dean & Sam during the Season 4 show..
- Next season seems to be interesting...hope the storyline will be more on main characters development ..

Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass Completed !

I finished Legend of Zelda : Phantom Hourglass last week...it was an awesome game on NDS.

That's it for Hourglass, now on track to finish un-finished Twilight Princess..