Can one run a program like FDISK on an external USB disk?
Reason = I wish to format a USB drive to only 64 GB FAT32.
I have a recording device which writes to a USB drive,
but only handles FAT32. Now the smallest drive I can find
retail is 160 GB. A 64 GB flash drive is fairly expensive.
I can actually get a 250 GB pocket hard drive cheaper.
I believe FAT32 above 128 GB is not practical, so if I
could format a drive to less capacity, then I shall be
a goer.

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George Orwell wrote

> Can one run a program like FDISK on an external USB disk?

Yes, the better partitioners work fine on external USB drives.

The OS does too with the later OS like XP and Vista.

> Reason = I wish to format a USB drive to only 64 GB FAT32.
> I have a recording device which writes to a USB drive,
> but only handles FAT32. Now the smallest drive I can find
> retail is 160 GB. A 64 GB flash drive is fairly expensive.
> I can actually get a 250 GB pocket hard drive cheaper.
> I believe FAT32 above 128 GB is not practical,

That is just plain wrong. The only downside with FAT32 is
that you cant have files bigger than 4GB. Recording devices
normally break the files they create into parts no bigger than that.

> so if I could format a drive to less capacity, then I shall be a goer.

It'll work fine formatted to its full capacity.

On Aug 23, 8:42*am, "Rod Speed" <rod.speed....@gmail.com> wrote:
> George Orwell wrote
>
> > Can one run a program like FDISK on an external USB disk?
>
> Yes, the better partitioners work fine on external USB drives.
>
> The OS does too with the later OS like XP and Vista.
>
> > Reason = I wish to format a USB drive to only 64 GB FAT32.
> > I have a recording device which writes to a USB drive,
> > but only handles FAT32. Now the smallest drive I can find
> > retail is 160 GB. A 64 GB flash drive is fairly expensive.
> > I can actually get a 250 GB pocket hard drive cheaper.
> > I believe FAT32 above 128 GB is not practical,
>
> That is just plain wrong. The only downside with FAT32 is
> that you cant have files bigger than 4GB. Recording devices
> normally break the files they create into parts no bigger than that.
>
> > so if I could format a drive to less capacity, then I shall be a goer.
>
> It'll work fine formatted to its full capacity.

I often see FAT32 disks with 500GB.

There can be a problem with some operating systems / device drivers at
about 137GB, but this is disk handling, and not file system.

There is a nice free windows program fat32format.exe that will allow
you to format any drive to FAT32. (Google will find it for you). The
standard Windows program has a rather low limit, from memory, possibly
32GB

Michael

George Orwell <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Can one run a program like FDISK on an external USB disk?

Yes.

> Reason = I wish to format a USB drive to only 64 GB FAT32.
> I have a recording device which writes to a USB drive,
> but only handles FAT32.

FAT32 has an 2TB partition size limit, but not a 64GB limit.
Are you sure that is the issue?

> Now the smallest drive I can find
> retail is 160 GB. A 64 GB flash drive is fairly expensive.
> I can actually get a 250 GB pocket hard drive cheaper.
> I believe FAT32 above 128 GB is not practical, so if I
> could format a drive to less capacity, then I shall be
> a goer.

FAT32 at or above 128GB has no problems it does not already
have below that size. There is a 128GB limit, if you use IDE
and LBA28, but that does not affect USB at all, since USB
storage always has used SCSI commands and adressing, giving
it either 32 or 64 bit sector addresses. Hence there may be
a 2TB device size limit in some USB implementations, but
no 128GB limit.


Arno

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> On Aug 23, 8:42 am, "Rod Speed" <rod.speed....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> George Orwell wrote
>>
>>> Can one run a program like FDISK on an external USB disk?
>>
>> Yes, the better partitioners work fine on external USB drives.
>>
>> The OS does too with the later OS like XP and Vista.
>>
>>> Reason = I wish to format a USB drive to only 64 GB FAT32.
>>> I have a recording device which writes to a USB drive,
>>> but only handles FAT32. Now the smallest drive I can find
>>> retail is 160 GB. A 64 GB flash drive is fairly expensive.
>>> I can actually get a 250 GB pocket hard drive cheaper.
>>> I believe FAT32 above 128 GB is not practical,
>>
>> That is just plain wrong. The only downside with FAT32 is
>> that you cant have files bigger than 4GB. Recording devices
>> normally break the files they create into parts no bigger than that.
>>
>>> so if I could format a drive to less capacity, then I shall be a
>>> goer.
>>
>> It'll work fine formatted to its full capacity.
>
> I often see FAT32 disks with 500GB.

> There can be a problem with some operating systems / device
> drivers at about 137GB, but this is disk handling, and not file system.

And normally wouldnt apply to the 'recording device'

> There is a nice free windows program fat32format.exe that will allow
> you to format any drive to FAT32. (Google will find it for you). The standard
> Windows program has a rather low limit, from memory, possibly 32GB

Yes, its stupid enough to restrict you to that size.