FAT32 format choice is lost, where is it??!!

[Guest]

I have installed a new physical hard disk on my computer running Windows XP pro
afterwards I 've made as one logical drive contains three extended
partitions. However, the first partition refused to be formated as FAT32,
(the choice FAT32 does not exit at all, only the NTFS), on the other hand the
second and the third partition both choices (NTFS, FAT32) are available, what
should I do?
thank a lot, and your advice will be highly apperciated

 

[Bob Harris]

XP has a "feature" that refuses to format any partion larger than 32 Gig as
FAT32.

However, if you format the partition without using XP's format command, then
XP will happily use te FAT32 partition, even if it is larger than 32 Gig.

So, you need to do the partitioning outside of XP. Options include FDISK
run from a DOS (win98) floppy, or a third-party program run outside of XP
like the free disk-prep tools offerred by Seagate, Maxtor, estern Digital,
etc, or a third-party program run inside of XP, like Partition Magic.

 

[neil]

How big is the first partition that could explain why FAT32 is not an
option.

Neil

 

[Guest]

It is 60GB and by the way used in a moble USB Hard disk storage and it is
requered to Fat32 to be able to be recognized by Win 98/ME!!

 

[neil]

Hi,
Pinching this from a previous answer
"XP has a "feature" that refuses to format any partition larger than 32 Gig
as
FAT32.

However, if you format the partition without using XP's format command, then
XP will happily use the FAT32 partition, even if it is larger than 32 Gig."

So if you bring up a command prompt, type "cmd" in the run command (no
quotes) and then type format [your drive letter] /FS:FAT32, that should do
it.

Neil

 

[JustMe]

Go to bootdisk.com and get a 98se floppy image, create the floppy, boot with
it, run fdisk and then format the partitions.