How do I format a USB drive in FAT32?

[Guest]

I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use as a
network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.

PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires FAT32.
Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary FAT32
partition under Windows XP.

When I connect the drive to my PC it is properly recognised and functioning.
In the format window there is even a "file system" pull down menu but the
only option to select is NTFS.

Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

 

[Z]

Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

Connect drive, open DOS window, FORMAT <drive> /FS:FAT32 ...

Type HELP FORMAT in the DOS window for the full syntax for the
FORMAT command.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Jorg" <[email protected]>

| I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use as a
| network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.
|
| PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires FAT32.
| Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary FAT32
| partition under Windows XP.
|
| When I connect the drive to my PC it is properly recognised and functioning.
| In the format window there is even a "file system" pull down menu but the
| only option to select is NTFS.
|
| Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
| purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

You don't ! WinXP won't allow it.

A 250GB drive will use 4KB sized clusters in NTFS.
Therefore a 1 byte file on NTFS will consume 4KB

A 32GB drive will use 32KB sized clusters in FAT32.
Therefore a 1 byte file on FAT32 with a 32KB cluster size will consume 32KB.

Can you see how this will be a problem under a 250GB drive ? Therefore it is not supported

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_lxty.asp

 

[Tim Slattery]

I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use as a
network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.

PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires FAT32.
Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary FAT32
partition under Windows XP.

WinXP will not create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB. A 250GB
FAT32 partition simply should not be considered.

 

[Z]

WinXP will not create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB. A 250GB
FAT32 partition simply should not be considered.

What about partitioning the 250GB into, say, 30GB/220GB ... can you then
format the 30GB partition as FAT32?

 

[Anna]

I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use as
a
network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.

PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires
FAT32.
Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary FAT32
partition under Windows XP.

When I connect the drive to my PC it is properly recognised and
functioning.
In the format window there is even a "file system" pull down menu but the
only option to select is NTFS.

Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

Jorg:
I assume the USBEHD you purchased is a one-piece unit in that the HD cannot
be removed from its enclosure without voiding the warranty or otherwise is
inaccessible. I mention that because if you *could* remove the HD from its
enclosure and temporarily install it in your computer, you could use a DOS
boot floppy disk such as the Startup floppy disk created in Win9x/Me and use
the FDISK & FORMAT commands to format your disk FAT32 without regard to its
capacity. The DOS bootup disks are freely available on a number of websites.
But I assume this is not a practical workaround for you.

As you've been informed, XP will not format a disk FAT32 > 32 GB. There is,
however, a workaround for this using a simple-to-use Linux-developed program
to format a disk of any size in FAT32 *within* the XP environment. I've
previously posted the details of using this program on this newsgroup a few
times. I'll do so again if you're interested.
Anna

 

[-rwxrw-r--]

From: "Jorg" <[email protected]>

| I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use
| as a network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.
|
| PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires
| FAT32. Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary
| FAT32 partition under Windows XP.
|
| When I connect the drive to my PC it is properly recognised and
| functioning. In the format window there is even a "file system" pull
| down menu but the only option to select is NTFS.
|
| Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
| purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

You don't ! WinXP won't allow it.

A 250GB drive will use 4KB sized clusters in NTFS.
Therefore a 1 byte file on NTFS will consume 4KB

A 32GB drive will use 32KB sized clusters in FAT32.
Therefore a 1 byte file on FAT32 with a 32KB cluster size will consume
32KB.

Can you see how this will be a problem under a 250GB drive ? Therefore it
is not supported

No I can't see where this would be a problem. If I'm using the 250GB to
store media files like MP3s or AVIs, I don't care that the cluster size is
large. Then again, I don't rely on MickeyMouse to make decisions for me
regarding how I want to use my computer.

The only reason I can see why MickeyMouse went this route by crippling XP to
prevent it from formatting large drives with FAT32 is to make it more
difficult for users using other operating systems that don't play well with
the proprietary NTFS file system.

 

[-rwxrw-r--]

I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use as
a network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.

PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires
FAT32. Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary
FAT32 partition under Windows XP.

When I connect the drive to my PC it is properly recognised and
functioning. In the format window there is even a "file system" pull down
menu but the only option to select is NTFS.

Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

You can get around this XP limitation by using a Linux program ported to XP
that will allow you to format large FAT32 hard drives from a XP command
prompt. Find it here ...

http://www.mager.org/mkdosfs/

 

[Tim Slattery]

What about partitioning the 250GB into, say, 30GB/220GB ... can you then
format the 30GB partition as FAT32?

That should work.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I recently purchased a new external 250 GB USB drive that I wish to use as
a
network drive. The drive is to be connected to my wireless router.

PROBLEM: The USB drive came formatted in NTFS but my router requires
FAT32.
Somehow I seem to be unable to format the drive with one primary FAT32
partition under Windows XP.

When I connect the drive to my PC it is properly recognised and
functioning.
In the format window there is even a "file system" pull down menu but the
only option to select is NTFS.

Is there a way to format the drive in FAT32 under Windows XP without
purchasing extra software such as Partition Magic?

Not with XP. If you have a computer with Windows 98 or Me you can do it from
there. You could also google for xp free partition manager. You will get
lot's of programs to try.

Kerry

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Kerry Brown" <[email protected]*a*m>


|
| Not with XP. If you have a computer with Windows 98 or Me you can do it from
| there. You could also google for xp free partition manager. You will get
| lot's of programs to try.
|
| Kerry
|

Without updates, Win98 would have problems working with a 250GB hard disk
http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php

 

[Stan Brown]

WinXP will not create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB.

And yet my computer came with two of them.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the
variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of
evolution is simply ignorant -- inexcusably ignorant, in a world
where three out of four people have learned to read and write."
--Daniel Dennett, /Darwin's Dangerous Idea/ (1995), page 46

 

[Ken Blake]

In

On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:34:45 -0400 in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, Tim Slattery favored us
with...

And yet my computer came with two of them.

Windows XP has no problem *using* a FAT32 partition larger than
XP. It just won't create one. You have to do is create them
externally to XP, for example with the FDISK from Windows Me.

Obviously, that's what your vendor did.

 

[Kerry Brown]

From: "Kerry Brown" <[email protected]*a*m>


|
| Not with XP. If you have a computer with Windows 98 or Me you can do it
from
| there. You could also google for xp free partition manager. You will get
| lot's of programs to try.
|
| Kerry
|

Without updates, Win98 would have problems working with a 250GB hard disk
http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php

You're right, forgot about the 16 bit integers that fdisk and format use
uses.

Kerry

 

[Anna]

You're right, forgot about the 16 bit integers that fdisk and format use
uses.

Kerry

Stan & Kerry:
The issue here is how the OP can format his 250 GB USB external hard drive
FAT32. It is *not* a question of *working* with that drive in a Win98
environment. As the OP has been informed by a number of responders, the 32
GB FAT32 limitation imposed by XP prevents him from formatting the drive
FAT32 to its maximum capacity. Were he able to remove the drive from its
enclosure and install it in his computer as an internal drive, then he could
use the FDISK/FORMAT commands available on a DOS boot floppy disk (Win9x/Me
Startup disk) to format the full capacity of that disk FAT32. But I take it
that the external drive is a commercial unit and it's not feasible to remove
the drive from its enclosure. So it doesn't look like that's a practical
workaround.

However, in a previous posting in this thread I mentioned that there is a
Linux-based program that one can effectively use *within* the XP environment
to format a disk (both internal and external) FAT32 without any size
limitation. That program is simple to use and my experience with it has been
quite positive. I've provided details on the use of this program in a number
of prior postings over the past few months and informed the OP that if he
was interested I'd detail them again.
Anna

 

[Kerry Brown]

Stan & Kerry:
The issue here is how the OP can format his 250 GB USB external hard drive
FAT32. It is *not* a question of *working* with that drive in a Win98
environment. As the OP has been informed by a number of responders, the 32
GB FAT32 limitation imposed by XP prevents him from formatting the drive
FAT32 to its maximum capacity. Were he able to remove the drive from its
enclosure and install it in his computer as an internal drive, then he
could use the FDISK/FORMAT commands available on a DOS boot floppy disk
(Win9x/Me Startup disk) to format the full capacity of that disk FAT32.
But I take it that the external drive is a commercial unit and it's not
feasible to remove the drive from its enclosure. So it doesn't look like
that's a practical workaround.

Anna

David was right. Win98 FDISK/FORMAT use 16 bit data types to display the
drive size and free space so even though you can create and use partitions
bigger than 64 GB the display shows the wrong amount. This makes it very
hard to partition and format a 250 GB drive with Win98 as the buffer would
overflow and the results would be unknown. With a fix from Microsoft an
external USB drive of up to 512 GB could be partitioned and formatted by a
Win98 machine then used by an XP machine. FDISK will display the size
properly. FORMAT will display wrong while formatting but it will work
properly. The OP would not have to remove the drive from the enclosure if it
has an appropriate driver for Win98. Installing the drive internally
wouldn't work anyway as the 48 bit LBA problem would also have to be worked
around. This is not easy with Win98 and not supported with FDISK.

My post should have read:

Do you have access to a Windows 98 computer with a USB port? Does the hard
drive have drivers for Windows 98? If yes to both then download the fix
below for Windows 98, hook up the external drive to the Windows 98 machine,
delete the NTFS partition, create and format a FAT32 partition. This
partition will work with XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263044

Kerry

 

[Kerry Brown]

Anna

David was right. Win98 FDISK/FORMAT use 16 bit data types to display the
drive size and free space so even though you can create and use partitions
bigger than 64 GB the display shows the wrong amount. This makes it very
hard to partition and format a 250 GB drive with Win98 as the buffer would
overflow and the results would be unknown. With a fix from Microsoft an
external USB drive of up to 512 GB could be partitioned and formatted by a
Win98 machine then used by an XP machine. FDISK will display the size
properly. FORMAT will display wrong while formatting but it will work
properly. The OP would not have to remove the drive from the enclosure if
it has an appropriate driver for Win98. Installing the drive internally
wouldn't work anyway as the 48 bit LBA problem would also have to be
worked around. This is not easy with Win98 and not supported with FDISK.

My post should have read:

Do you have access to a Windows 98 computer with a USB port? Does the hard
drive have drivers for Windows 98? If yes to both then download the fix
below for Windows 98, hook up the external drive to the Windows 98
machine, delete the NTFS partition, create and format a FAT32 partition.
This partition will work with XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263044

Don't know if it will work with the router though.

Kerry

 

[Lil' Dave]

No I can't see where this would be a problem. If I'm using the 250GB to
store media files like MP3s or AVIs, I don't care that the cluster size is
large. Then again, I don't rely on MickeyMouse to make decisions for me
regarding how I want to use my computer.

The only reason I can see why MickeyMouse went this route by crippling XP to
prevent it from formatting large drives with FAT32 is to make it more
difficult for users using other operating systems that don't play well with
the proprietary NTFS file system.

If you're downloading large files, cluster size makes little difference.
And it matters not if its NTFS, or FAT32. So, its not a matter of cluster
size to guide the choice, its simply a choice of either one. You are
choosing one that XP will not support at the size of partition you're
choosing to make. Those complaints don't belong to the previous reply, but
rather to MS.

If you're using ME or 98 as an alternate OS, you need to look into problems
these OSes have when 128GB data saved is exceeded. Even if there is
multiple partitions on that physical hard drive. The limitation is on the
physical hard drive, not just the partition. This is not a ME or 98
newsgroup, so will refrain from further sharing of information regarding
this area of concern.

 

[Lil' Dave]

While factually correct, the user may plan on adding another partition to
take the empty space. This is not advisable. 98/ME will wrap at 128GB of
data on multiple partitions on a hard drive exceeding that capacity.
Symptoms are filesystem filename corruption, multiple filemames in place of
the former filename, date/time corruption result in loss of data by normal
means.

Its happened to me for my own reality check. All other avenues of possible
sources of corruption were verified not existent.

Your original reply of making the 250GB hard drive entirely NTFS was most
accurate. As an alternate advice, stick with hard drives 132GB or less for
sharing with ME/98 so as not to waste money on larger capacity and not be
able to use all of its capacity. FAT32 partition(s) are assumed in this
case.

 

[Anna]

Anna

David was right. Win98 FDISK/FORMAT use 16 bit data types to display the
drive size and free space so even though you can create and use partitions
bigger than 64 GB the display shows the wrong amount. This makes it very
hard to partition and format a 250 GB drive with Win98 as the buffer would
overflow and the results would be unknown. With a fix from Microsoft an
external USB drive of up to 512 GB could be partitioned and formatted by a
Win98 machine then used by an XP machine. FDISK will display the size
properly. FORMAT will display wrong while formatting but it will work
properly. The OP would not have to remove the drive from the enclosure if
it has an appropriate driver for Win98. Installing the drive internally
wouldn't work anyway as the 48 bit LBA problem would also have to be
worked around. This is not easy with Win98 and not supported with FDISK.

My post should have read:

Do you have access to a Windows 98 computer with a USB port? Does the hard
drive have drivers for Windows 98? If yes to both then download the fix
below for Windows 98, hook up the external drive to the Windows 98
machine, delete the NTFS partition, create and format a FAT32 partition.
This partition will work with XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263044

Kerry

Kerry:
The problem with earlier versions of the FDISK command was that it
incorrectly reported the size of a hard disk partition that was larger than
64 GB. It incorrectly reported the full size of that disk MINUS 64 GB. It
was simply a reporting error; it had NO effect on any ensuing formatting
process. An updated version of FDISK correcting this anomaly was released by
Microsoft about five or so years ago as I recall.

The FORMAT.COM command had a similar problem in that when it was used to
format a partition > 64 GB, the correct size of the drive would not be
recognized at the BEGINNING of the format process. This was a cosmetic issue
ONLY; the drive would be formatted to its full size. The discrepancy is
purely cosmetic.

It is true that it was unwise to use hard drives > 127 GB in a Win9x/Me
environment because of the limitations of those OSs particularly as they
affected their scandisk & defragmenting functions. There was a real chance
of file corruption when disks > 127 GB were being used in those OSs. But
that, of course, is not the issue in this case. The OP has no intention (at
least he hasn't stated such!) of using his 250 GB drive in Win9x/Me OS. His
objective is to format that disk FAT32 for use in XP. (The question of
whether it's wise or desirable to format that large capacity disk FAT32 is
not an issue we're concerned with).

I believe he's made it clear, or at least inferred, that his 250 GB USBEHD
cannot be removed from its enclosure and (temporarily) installed as an
internal drive where he could use the FDISK/FORMAT commands to partition and
format that disk to its full capacity. I pointed out to the OP (as well as
others who might be similarly interested) that there IS a program that one
can use WITHIN the XP environment which will allow the user to format the
full capacity of a disk in FAT32 even if that disk is > 32 GB. I've covered
the details of using that program a number of times in previous postings and
will so again should anyone be interested.
Anna