Max size USB HD for FAT32?

[Sid Knee]

What is the maximum size of HD I can use in a USB-Drive when formatted
to FAT32?

I'm trying to format a 120G drive as one partition under Drive
Management and it gets to the 97% mark and says "Volume too big".

Windows 2000 of course (would it be any different under XP?).

 

[Dave Patrick]

The operating system will not format a partition greater than ~32 gB as FAT
You must use a third party tool for this. NTFS is the native file system of
Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista and is always recommended. No it won't be any
different with Windows XP

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Sid Knee]

The operating system will not format a partition greater than ~32 gB as
FAT You must use a third party tool for this. NTFS is the native file
system of Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista and is always recommended. No it
won't be any different with Windows XP

Thanks Dave. Nice of it to take an hour getting to the 97% mark (of
120G) before it let me know

Normally I would format it NTFS, the reason it needs to be FAT32 is that
it's actually a media drive that you load up with video/audio files (via
the USB connections) and it plays them back through a TV. Presumably the
firmware is Linux-based so it can't use NTFS because of licence
restrictions.

The curious thing is that they say it will take large laptop HD's and
their advertised video run times reflect that. It's unlikely the device
can work with multiple partitions so they have to be assuming you can
get the format done somehow (the instructions - such as they are -
basically say format from Windows).

Any suggestions for a third party tool anyone?

Anyone know if Partition Magic would do it if I connected it directly as an ide drive?

 

[Dave Patrick]

Yes, no problem PM can do it as well as most any of the other third party
tools. You can also use a win98 startup disk as long as the hardware would
be available in this mode.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Sid Knee]

Yes, no problem PM can do it as well as most any of the other third
party tools. You can also use a win98 startup disk as long as the
hardware would be available in this mode.

Thanks Dave that's good info. Not sure whether the Win98 route would
work - the hardware is there but whether a Win98 DOS boot disk would see
it ....? Could try it easily enough though and it would be interesting
to find out.

After a bit more digging I actually tracked down a small utility
ostensibly for a similar media drive from another manufacturer (although
much of this equipment often seems pretty generic). It was aimed
apparently at just this problem and, despite the warning that it was
specifically for that manufacturer's hardware I gave it a shot.

And it was (apparently) no problem at all. Detected the drive and
formatted it in seconds (why is it that some formatting programs take
and hour or more and others are almost instantaneous?).

For the record I got the utility from:

http://www.iodata.com/usa/products/AVLP2_Setup.php

if anyone's following this or gets it on a future search

I've already copied a bunch of stuff over to the drive and played it
back and it seems to be fine. If I run into any trouble when I load it
up more I'll try the PM or Win98 route.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Might be the difference between quick format and physical error checking.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect