NTFS Drive to FAT32

[CSM]

I have an external 160gig USB drive that formatted as NTFS. How can I
convert it back to FAT32. I am willing to loose data on it to reformat. My
problem is that, under Vista, the only format option I have is NTFS. I want
to use it as an external drive for my Sony PS3.

Tks,
CM

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5dd16a76-7224-45ed-946a-72d5c6dc6e821033.mspx

 

[HeyBub]

I have an external 160gig USB drive that formatted as NTFS. How can I
convert it back to FAT32. I am willing to loose data on it to
reformat. My problem is that, under Vista, the only format option I
have is NTFS. I want to use it as an external drive for my Sony PS3.

The drive's manufacturer may have software to partion and format the drive.
Neither XP nor Vista can format a FAT32 drive in excess of 32Mb (I'm not
sure about Win98, Win95, or Win6.1).

You'd probably be better off getting another, smaller, drive. They can be
found at the bottom of CrackerJack boxes.

 

[philo]

I have an external 160gig USB drive that formatted as NTFS. How can I
convert it back to FAT32. I am willing to loose data on it to reformat. My
problem is that, under Vista, the only format option I have is NTFS. I want
to use it as an external drive for my Sony PS3.

Tks,
CM

Vista (and XP) do not support the creating of Fat32 partitions over 32 gigs
so you will need to set the drive up from another machine if you cannot do
so from your PS3


If you have no other machines to use...
you can remove the main drive of your machine
and temporarily install the drive that's in the enclosure there.

then use a win9x boot floppy
and run fdisk and delete all
then recreate one primary partition

reboot and format

 

[Universe_JDJ]

The drive's manufacturer may have software to partion and format the drive.
Neither XP nor Vista can format a FAT32 drive in excess of 32Mb (I'm not
sure about Win98, Win95, or Win6.1).

You'd probably be better off getting another, smaller, drive. They can be
found at the bottom of CrackerJack boxes.

You mean 32GB?

 

[mayayana]

The following is a general solution, but I have
no idea what a PlayStation can deal with. --

Download BootIt from here:
www.terabyteunlimited.com

You can do what you want for free during the
trial period, but it's also well worth the $35 price.

Create an extended partition on the disk. In
that you can have any number of logical partitions.
Create logical partitions to fill the 160 GB while
staying under the FAT32 limit.

On any disk you can have up to 4 primary partitions
(which can each hold a Windows install if desired).
Any primary partition can be created as an extended
partition, which can then hold any number of logical partitions.
For all practical purposes a primary and a logical are the
same thing. They can both hold data. The only notable
difference in usage is that Windows needs to install to a
primary partition, while Linux can install on either.

 

[Paul Randall]

I have an external 160gig USB drive that formatted as NTFS. How can I
convert it back to FAT32. I am willing to loose data on it to reformat.
My problem is that, under Vista, the only format option I have is NTFS. I
want to use it as an external drive for my Sony PS3.

All versions of Windows starting with WXPSE have been capable of using and
reading huge hard drives with FAT32 formatting. WXPSE can format these huge
hard drives, but Microsoft decided to criple the FAT32 formatting capability
of WXP and Vista, limiting it to 32GB. Go figure. I have a number of 300
GB FAT32-formatted drives which I use with WXP (USB - haven't hooked them up
to my Vista machine yet). I like being able to access them with a DOS
bootable thumb drive or CD/DVD.

I have had Norton Ghost for many years, which includes a DOS program
GDisk.exe for partitioning and formatting small and huge drives.

-Paul Randall

 

[NoStop]

The drive's manufacturer may have software to partion and format the
drive. Neither XP nor Vista can format a FAT32 drive in excess of 32Mb
(I'm not sure about Win98, Win95, or Win6.1).

Use Linux. It has no problem formatting large drives with FAT32.

You'd probably be better off getting another, smaller, drive. They can be
found at the bottom of CrackerJack boxes.

I thought that is where Vista came from? If it doesn't, MickeyMouse should
look at that avenue to distribute its toy operating system.

Cheers.

 

[dennis@home]

Use Linux. It has no problem formatting large drives with FAT32.

Linux has exactly the same problems formatting fat32.
If what you say above reflects your knowledge of linux you need to take
lessons before it bites you.

 

[Tim Slattery]

The drive's manufacturer may have software to partion and format the drive.
Neither XP nor Vista can format a FAT32 drive in excess of 32Mb (I'm not
sure about Win98, Win95, or Win6.1).

That's 32GB. Win98 and ME will create FAT32 partitions as large as you
want. They kind of had to, since there was no alternative for huge
disks. WinXP and Vista have NTFS available, which is a *much* better
choice for huge disks. FAT32 really doesn't scale up all that well.

To do this conversion non-destructively, you'll need a third party
program (Partition Magic, BootItNG, something like that). FDISK from
Win98 or WinME should be able to delete the current partition
(destroying all data stored on it), and create a new FAT32 one in its
place.

 

[NoStop]

Linux has exactly the same problems formatting fat32.
If what you say above reflects your knowledge of linux you need to take
lessons before it bites you.

Sorry to hear you're having probs formatting large drives with Linux. I
haven't experienced any problems doing this. Maybe it is you that needs to
learn more about using Linux?

Cheers.

 

[dennis@home]

Sorry to hear you're having probs formatting large drives with Linux. I
haven't experienced any problems doing this. Maybe it is you that needs to
learn more about using Linux?

I didn't say it was a problem to format drives with FAT, I said it has the
same problems.
Sorry that you can't read or understand linux or understand windows.
FAT is the problem and not the OS just to help you out.

 

[NoStop]

I didn't say it was a problem to format drives with FAT, I said it has the
same problems.
Sorry that you can't read or understand linux or understand windows.
FAT is the problem and not the OS just to help you out.

The OP asked if there was a way to format large hard drives (larger than
32GB) with a FAT32 filesystem. I simply stated that it can be easily done
with Linux. You on the other hand, just talk rubbish. Now you're saying
that "it has the same problems". WTF are you talking about? What problems
are you referring to in the context of this thread? I think it is you that
appears to have problems reading and understanding. Why is FAT the problem?
I understand where FAT32 is probably not the best filesystem one can use -
an ext3 system that uses journaling is my chosen system, but that wasn't
what this thread was about.

Cheers.

 

[dennis@home]

The OP asked if there was a way to format large hard drives (larger than
32GB) with a FAT32 filesystem. I simply stated that it can be easily done
with Linux. You on the other hand, just talk rubbish. Now you're saying
that "it has the same problems". WTF are you talking about? What problems
are you referring to in the context of this thread? I think it is you that
appears to have problems reading and understanding. Why is FAT the
problem?
I understand where FAT32 is probably not the best filesystem one can use -
an ext3 system that uses journaling is my chosen system, but that wasn't
what this thread was about.

It wasn't about linux either and FAT suffers from the same problem whatever
OS creates it.

Anyway IIRC vista will format a big drive with FAT if the command line
format command is used.

Formats a disk for use with Windows.

FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [/Q] [/A:size] [/C] [/X]
[/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/F:size] [/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors] [/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/Q]

volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
/FS:filesystem Specifies the type of the file system (FAT, FAT32, NTFS,
or UDF).
/V:label Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format. Note that this switch overrides
/P.
/C NTFS only: Files created on the new volume will be
compressed
by default.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All
opened
handles to the volume would no longer be valid.
/R:revision UDF only: Forces the format to a specific UDF version
(1.02, 1.50, 2.00, 2.01, 2.50). The default
revision is 2.01.
/D UDF 2.50 only: Metadata will be duplicated.
/A:size Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default
settings
are strongly recommended for general use.
NTFS supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K.
FAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K,
(128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).
FAT32 supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K,
(128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).

Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the
following restrictions on the number of clusters on a
volume:

FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526
FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 4177918

Format will immediately stop processing if it decides that
the above requirements cannot be met using the specified
cluster size.

NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit
sizes
above 4096.

/F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (1.44)
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/Passes Zero every sector on the volume passes times. This switch
is
not valid with /Q

 

[Frank]

The OP asked if there was a way to format large hard drives (larger than
32GB) with a FAT32 filesystem. I simply stated that it can be easily done
with Linux. You on the other hand, just talk rubbish. Now you're saying
that "it has the same problems". WTF are you talking about? What problems
are you referring to in the context of this thread? I think it is you
that
appears to have problems reading and understanding. Why is FAT the
problem?
I understand where FAT32 is probably not the best filesystem one can
use -
an ext3 system that uses journaling is my chosen system, but that wasn't
what this thread was about.

It wasn't about linux either and FAT suffers from the same problem
whatever OS creates it.

Anyway IIRC vista will format a big drive with FAT if the command line
format command is used.

Formats a disk for use with Windows.

FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [/Q] [/A:size] [/C] [/X]
[/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/F:size] [/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors] [/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/Passes]
FORMAT volume [/Q]

volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
/FS:filesystem Specifies the type of the file system (FAT, FAT32, NTFS,
or UDF).
/V:label Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format. Note that this switch
overrides /P.
/C NTFS only: Files created on the new volume will be
compressed
by default.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All
opened
handles to the volume would no longer be valid.
/R:revision UDF only: Forces the format to a specific UDF version
(1.02, 1.50, 2.00, 2.01, 2.50). The default
revision is 2.01.
/D UDF 2.50 only: Metadata will be duplicated.
/A:size Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default
settings
are strongly recommended for general use.
NTFS supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K.
FAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K,
(128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).
FAT32 supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K,
(128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).

Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the
following restrictions on the number of clusters on a
volume:

FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526
FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 4177918

Format will immediately stop processing if it decides that
the above requirements cannot be met using the specified
cluster size.

NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit
sizes
above 4096.

/F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (1.44)
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/Passes Zero every sector on the volume passes times. This
switch is
not valid with /Q

Ohhhh...I think you've confused doris.
That's way too much math for her to comprehend.
Frank