repost: can't get back to fat32 on removable drive

[Cagdas Ozgenc]

Greetings,

I purchased a USB2.0 interface 40GB external drive. It came with FAT32
formatted. I formatted it with NTFS while I was experimenting with it. I
realized (a little late) that I needed FAT32 for plugging it to other
computers with various O/Ss. Now I cannot format it with FAT32 due to XP
limitation.

People have suggested booting with an old windows boot disk. Firstly, I do
not have access to an old windows version at the moment to create a boot
disk. Secondly, I heavily doubt that the drive will be available without
appropriate DOS drivers, which I do not have.

I will NOT use this disk to install an operating system on it, just for
back-up. I also would like to have one whole partition. Hence segmenting it
into chunks smaller than 32GB is not an option.

Is there a FREE utility that I can download from the internet to achieve
this task? Or am I toasted?

Thanks

 

[John Barnett - MVP]

XP will allow you to remove an ntfs file system. You will not be able to use
another operating system's boot disk, because ntfs doesn't recognise dos.
However, try this:

1/ Start your pc using your XP cd-rom
2/ When the Welcome to Setup secrren appears press F10
3/ This opens up the Recovery Console. You will need to log in with your
admin password
4/ Type map and then press Enter
5/ Make a note of the drive you want to reformat. Remember the drive letters
in recovery console may be different to those in xp
6/ type fomat x: /fs:fat32 (where x is the drive letter you want to
reformat) and press Enter
7/ Type 'Y' to confirm your choice
8/ The drive should now begin to reformat in fat32
9/ After it completes type exit and then press Enter. Your pc will restart
at this point so remember to remove the xp cd so you can boot straight into
the operating system.

Hope this solves your problem

John Barnett - MVP
Associate Expert

 

[Alex Nichol]

I purchased a USB2.0 interface 40GB external drive. It came with FAT32
formatted. I formatted it with NTFS while I was experimenting with it. I
realized (a little late) that I needed FAT32 for plugging it to other
computers with various O/Ss. Now I cannot format it with FAT32 due to XP
limitation.

People have suggested booting with an old windows boot disk. Firstly, I do
not have access to an old windows version at the moment to create a boot
disk. Secondly, I heavily doubt that the drive will be available without
appropriate DOS drivers, which I do not have.

Repeat reply:
You ought to be able to do it with BootIT NG, from
http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional trial)

Download, to its own folder, extract from the zip, run the bootitng to
make a boot floppy.

Boot the floppy, Cancel Install, entering maintenance, then click on
Partition work. This should show a USB 2.0 drive, and you could then
highlight the existing partition, Delete it, Create a new one to be FAT
32 and then Format it (safer than trying to change type and then
format)