How to format 320GB drive to FAT32

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

| Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB but
| it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems or
| disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive FAT32
| would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
| from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest that
| you use the NTFS file system.
|

My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has a
similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives. You could
either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that way, or use a FAT 32 120GB USB
2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

|
| | | Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB but
| | it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems or
| | disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive FAT32
| | would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
| | from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest that
| | you use the NTFS file system.
| |
|
| My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has a
| similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives. You could
| either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that way, or use a FAT 32 120GB
USB
| 2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.
|

Probably can't copy from the external HDD to the SATA II drive unless you have
an operating system on the SATA II drive and it is formatted NTFS. NTFS can see
FAT 32, but not the other way around.

Break out the DVD burning project.

 

[Ron Sommer]

message :
: : | Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB but
: | it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems or
: | disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive FAT32
: | would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
: | from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest that
: | you use the NTFS file system.
: |
:
: My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has a
: similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives. You
could
: either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that way, or use a FAT 32
120GB USB
: 2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.
:
:
'My Windows Me won't see the NTFS drives.'
Drives don't see drives. Operating systems see drives.

 

[Ron Sommer]

message :
message
: : |
: | : | | Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB
but
: | | it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems
or
: | | disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive
FAT32
: | | would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
: | | from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest
that
: | | you use the NTFS file system.
: | |
: |
: | My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has
a
: | similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives. You
could
: | either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that way, or use a FAT 32
120GB
: USB
: | 2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.
: |
:
: Probably can't copy from the external HDD to the SATA II drive unless you
have
: an operating system on the SATA II drive and it is formatted NTFS. NTFS
can see
: FAT 32, but not the other way around.
:
: Break out the DVD burning project.
:
:
It doesn't matter if the drive has an operating system.
A file system does not see another file system.
The operating system sees the file systems.

 

[John John]

| Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB but
| it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems or
| disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive FAT32
| would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
| from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest that
| you use the NTFS file system.
|

My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has a
similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives. You could
either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that way, or use a FAT 32 120GB USB
2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.

Who said anything about Windows Me accessing NTFS drives? It can't
without third party NTFS drivers.

John

 

[Dr Teeth]

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when "Cymbal Man Freq."

My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives.

It is nothing to do with the format of the drives.

Win ME does not work with NTFS, period. You will need an OS that does,
that's basically Win XP for you.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

 

[John John]

|
| | | Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB but
| | it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems or
| | disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive FAT32
| | would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
| | from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest that
| | you use the NTFS file system.
| |
|
| My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has a
| similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives. You could
| either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that way, or use a FAT 32 120GB
USB
| 2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.
|

Probably can't copy from the external HDD to the SATA II drive unless you have
an operating system on the SATA II drive and it is formatted NTFS. NTFS can see
FAT 32, but not the other way around.

Break out the DVD burning project.

Every point made in your post is false.

John

 

[over]

I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
followed KB link
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid
=330&p_created=1025121240&p_sid=RYTbYZni&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3
J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NjMmcF9wcm9kcz0yMDMmcF9jYXRzPTEyM
yZwX3B2PTEuMjAzOzIudTAmcF9jdj0xLjEyMzsyLnUwJnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vy
cy5zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1 to format the new
SATAII HDD.

Windows XP only gave NTFS as partition type option. Since NTFS & FAT32
partitions were incompatible, I couldn't copy the files to this new
drive unless I changed all my old drive partitions to NTFS. I think
it's too tedious and risky to change my old HDD partition format.
Could someone suggest methods for me to copy data safely from my FAT32
formatted HDD to this SATA HDD ?

Tks

If you are running Windows XP or later, just format the new drive as NTFS
- you will be able to copy the files from FAT32 to NTFS, as WinXP+ can
read/write both. WinXP will only let you format a partition up to 32GB
as FAT32, but can read/write larger FAT32 partitions than that (created
by another operating system).

If you are running Windows 98/ME, you will only be able to format as
FAT32, but you can do larger partitions than 32GB (and you would be
posting to the wrong newsgroup in this case).

The above is assuming that you are installing the new big drive in the
same machine as the older drives. If they are in separate machines, you
can send files from one to the other over a network connection - the disk
filesystems would be read by one machine and written by the other, and
they won't know or care what the filesystem on the other machine is.

If you want to use the drive where it will be accessed by two operating
systems such as Win98 and WinXP (example: either on a dual-boot machine
or in an external enclosure) you can format it as FAT32 using Win98 and
then XP will be able to use the drive as well.

 

[Tim Slattery]

| Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB but
| it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating systems or
| disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such large drive FAT32
| would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is nothing stopping you
| from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS so I would suggest that
| you use the NTFS file system.
|

My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably has a
similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS drives.

Not exactly. The Win9x operating systems (Win95, Win98, Win98SE,
WinME) cannot use or even see an NTFS partition. They can use such a
partition via a network connection to a machine that supports NTFS,
that's a very different thing. But if you install a drive with an NTFS
partition into your WinME machine, the WinME machine won't see the
partition.

But in systems that support both NTFS and FAT32 (NT, Win2000, WinXP),
there would be no problem copying files back and forth between NTFS
and FAT32 partitions.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably
has a similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS
drives.

No, this is not at all correct. First of all, note that it's not drives or
file systems that see other drives or file systems; it's the operating
system that does or doesn't do this. File systems don't see or access file
systems, under any circumstances.

So it's Windows Me (not the FAT32 drive it's installed on) that can't see an
NTFS drive. However, Windows XP, whether Home or Professional, can access
NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12, in any combination at all, and regardless of
what file system it's installed on. If Windows XP is installed using FAT, it
can see and access NTFS just as well as if were installed under NTFS. And if
it's installed under NTFS, it can see and access FAT drives without a
problem.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Probably can't copy from the external HDD to the SATA II drive unless
you have an operating system on the SATA II drive

Nope, not at all true

and it is formatted NTFS.

Nope, not at all true.

NTFS can see FAT 32, but not the other way around.

Nope, not at all true, as I just pointed out in another message in this
thread.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

| I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
| files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
| followed KB link
|
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...y5zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
| to format the new SATAII HDD.
|
| Windows XP only gave NTFS as partition type option. Since NTFS & FAT32
| partitions were incompatible, I couldn't copy the files to this new
| drive unless I changed all my old drive partitions to NTFS. I think
| it's too tedious and risky to change my old HDD partition format. Could
| someone suggest methods for me to copy data safely from my FAT32
| formatted HDD to this SATA HDD ?
|
| Tks

SATA II: Can't you partition the first 2 partitions as FAT 32 @ 32GB each, then
partition the next 2 partitions as NTFS with 125 GB each?

 

[Noozer]

| I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
| files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
| followed KB link

You don't need to have the new drive formatted to FAT32 to copy files from a
FAT32 drive.

 

[Dr Teeth]

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when "Cymbal Man Freq."

SATA II: Can't you partition the first 2 partitions as FAT 32 @ 32GB each, then
partition the next 2 partitions as NTFS with 125 GB each?

Yes.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

 

[Ron Sommer]

message :
: : | I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
: | files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
: | followed KB link
: |
:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...y5zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
: | to format the new SATAII HDD.
: |
: | Windows XP only gave NTFS as partition type option. Since NTFS & FAT32
: | partitions were incompatible, I couldn't copy the files to this new
: | drive unless I changed all my old drive partitions to NTFS. I think
: | it's too tedious and risky to change my old HDD partition format. Could
: | someone suggest methods for me to copy data safely from my FAT32
: | formatted HDD to this SATA HDD ?
: |
: | Tks
:
: SATA II: Can't you partition the first 2 partitions as FAT 32 @ 32GB each,
then
: partition the next 2 partitions as NTFS with 125 GB each?
:
:
The actual size of the drive is probably 296 GB.
Your four partitions are more than that.

 

[Guest]

Wonder if 36 posts is a record? Probably not.

Just thought I'd mention that it also makes no odds what disk format is used
for drives/folders shared over a network. In fact, Linux servers' shares will
most likley use ext3 or Reiser, which Windows can't read at all natively. Yet
they look just the same to clients.

The refusal to format as FAT32 if >32GB is purely a built-in policy of Disk
Administrator, which bears no relation to hardware limits. HST, max sensible
size of a FAT 32 partition is probably about 120GB. Beyond that it gets
_very_ inefficient.

 

[Dr Teeth]

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when Ian

The refusal to format as FAT32 if >32GB is purely a built-in policy of Disk
Administrator, which bears no relation to hardware limits.

The limit is there as some disk utils do not expect such large h/ds
and can corrupt data if the run on disks >65K clusters (IIRC natch).

It's a safety net.

NTFS is faster on >60GB disks, FAT32 faster on < 60 GB ones. For discs
also read partitions.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.