(snip irrelevant portions...)
Steve (and others who may be interested in this approach)...
As most of us know, the XP operating system cannot partition/format a hard
drive in FAT32 greater than 32 GB. One can use the FDISK/FORMAT commands on
a DOS bootable floppy disk (such as a Win9x/Me Startup Disk) to
partition/format an internal hard drive of virtually any size in FAT32.
However, since the FDISK command will not "see" a USB/Firewire external hard
drive, that drive cannot be partitioned/formatted in FAT32 using the
FDISK/FORMAT commands. While a USB EHD *can* be formatted FAT32 using XP's
Disk Management utility, the 32 GB limitation will still apply. To be sure,
should the hard drive that's contained in a USB external enclosure be
removable (it's not in a sealed unit or warranty issues are not involved),
it could be removed and installed (temporarily) as an internal drive and
then formatted FAT32 using the DOS bootable floppy disk (or DOS bootable
CD), and then reinstalled in its USB enclosure.
One way to overcome this barrier is to use a Linux-developed program called
mkdosfs.exe developed by Jens-Uwe Mager (
http://www.mager.org/mkdosfs/).
(This program was brought to my attention a few months ago by a poster to
this newsgroup). Refer to that site for complete details on the background
of this program and its utilization. In addition to the usefulness of this
program in formatting a USB EHD of any capacity in FAT32, the program can
also can be similarly used to format an internal HD of any capacity in
FAT32.
You can download the mkdosfs.zip file from Mr. Mager's website and extract
the mkdosfs.exe program file. The great advantage of this program is that it
works from *within* the XP environment. NOTE THIS PROGRAM IS *NOT* A
CONVERSION PROGRAM IN THE SENSE THAT IT WILL CONVERT A NTFS PARTITION TO A
FAT32 PARTITION WHILE RETAINING ALL THE DATA. RATHER IT IS DESIGNED TO
FORMAT THE PARTITION, SO ALL DATA WILL BE LOST FOLLOWING THE FORMATTING.
The program is very easy to use.
1.. Install the mkdosfs.exe file (it's only 68 KB) in your C:\ root
directory.
2.. Ensure that the drive to be formatted FAT32 is not presently being
accessed at the time you're undertaking the formatting.
3.. Using Start > Run > cmd, get to a C:\ prompt.
4.. Invoke the command "mkdosfs -F 32 x:" (no quotes) where x: is the
drive to be formatted.
(note the spacing within the command (mkdosfs(SPACE)-F(SPACE)32(SPACE)x: and
capitalize the "F", as shown).
MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOUR DRIVE LETTER REFLECTS THE DRIVE TO BE
FORMATTED! YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE ANY CONFIRMATION PROMPT AFTER INVOKING THE
COMMAND! ALL DATA ON THE FORMATTED PARTITION WILL BE LOST!
5.. Press Enter after typing the command.
6.. The formatting of your designated drive in FAT32 will take place. Two
lines of text will be displayed:
"mkdosfs 2.8 (28 Feb 2001)
Win32 port by Jens-Uwe Mager <
[email protected]>"
followed by the C:\ prompt after the drive has been formatted.
One additional note concerning use of this program.
Let's assume you have a 160 GB USB EHD that you want to format with three
FAT32 partitions of 40 GB, 40 GB, and 80 GB. Remember that the mkdosfs
program is a formatting device; it is not designed to create partitions. So
in this example you would first use XP's Disk Management utility to
*temporarily* create the three partitions in NTFS, after which you would
simply use the mkdosfs program to overwrite the three NTFS partitions with
FAT32 ones.
Anna
