SATA can exFAT and Not FAT32

[DJW]

I have a SATA drive I got out of and older laptop running vista. I attachedit to a USB/ATA/SATA bridge. It had a blue titled text HP recovery partition made obviously by vista installer CD and another partition whose title is in black text. First off I reformatted the partitions to wipe the old files off using windows XP Pro. The recovery Partition allowed me to format itin NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT. But the other partition is only showing NTFS and exFAT. Why would this drive be such? I wanted to format it in FAT32 becauseI would move it externally between a Mac and windows 98SE and XP computers..
So my two questions are why does it not allow to format both partitions as FAT32 and how can I merge the partitions either before of during a formatting. I have not tried it yet but would I do it in FDISK? The formatting options I see are when I right click format in my computer.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a SATA drive I got out of and older laptop running vista.
I attached it to a USB/ATA/SATA bridge.

It had a blue titled text HP recovery partition made obviously by vista
installer CD

It may well in fact have been made by HP, no the Vista installer CD at all.

and another partition whose title is in black text.

First off I reformatted the partitions to wipe the old files off using
windows XP Pro.

The recovery Partition allowed me to format it in NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT.
But the other partition is only showing NTFS and exFAT.
Why would this drive be such?

Because it does not allow the bigger partitions to be formatted FAT32.

I wanted to format it in FAT32 because I would move it externally
between a Mac and windows 98SE and XP computers.

You just have to format it with something else like DOS or 98SE.

So my two questions are why does it not allow to format both partitions as
FAT32

Because it does not allow the larger partitions to be formatted FAT32.

and how can I merge the partitions either before of during a formatting.

Just delete all the partitions and create a new one that covers the entire
physical drive.

I have not tried it yet but would I do it in FDISK?

You can. But you can also do that with almost
anything that will delete and create partitions.

 

[DJW]

Is there a limit to the size of a partition with FAT32 and what is the difference with it and exFAT?

 

[Rod Speed]

Is there a limit to the size of a partition with FAT32

Yes, but it isnt the one that XP will allow you to do FAT32.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32

and what is the difference with it and exFAT?

The difference in general, or on that partition size question ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

 

[Arno]

I have a SATA drive I got out of and older laptop running vista. I
attached it to a USB/ATA/SATA bridge. It had a blue titled text HP
recovery partition made obviously by vista installer CD and another
partition whose title is in black text. First off I reformatted the
partitions to wipe the old files off using windows XP Pro. The recovery
Partition allowed me to format it in NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT. But the other
partition is only showing NTFS and exFAT. Why would this drive be such?
I wanted to format it in FAT32 because I would move it externally between
a Mac and windows 98SE and XP computers. So my two questions are why does
it not allow to format both partitions as FAT32 and how can I merge the
partitions either before of during a formatting. I have not tried it yet
but would I do it in FDISK? The formatting options I see are when I right
click format in my computer.

Windows can only format FAT32 partitions up to 32GiB. It can
use larger ones , but you have to format them with a
real OS, e.g. using a Linux CD.

Arno

 

[DJW]

I used an USB IDE external bridge and attached it to an old computer running windows 98 SE then ran FDISK and deleted the partitions an reformatted into one partition of 149 GB. I have a number of external HDDs that are also FAT32 well over 80 GB that I need to cross platform there usage between macs and PCs (win XP) What is this talk above about a limit in size? I have gone over that above talked about limit as most are more than 80 GB?

 

[Rod Speed]

I used an USB IDE external bridge and attached it to an old computer
running windows 98 SE then ran FDISK and deleted the partitions an
reformatted into one partition of 149 GB. I have a number of external
HDDs that are also FAT32 well over 80 GB that I need to cross platform
there usage between macs and PCs (win XP)

What is this talk above about a limit in size?

There is a limit on the size that XP can FORMAT a drive with FAT32.

You can format it with something else like 98SE and XP is happy
to use it, but it won't FORMAT it FAT32 if its bigger than 32GB.

I have gone over that above talked about
limit as most are more than 80 GB?

Because you did that with 98SE and only used them with XP.

 

[Noob]

Windows can only format FAT32 partitions up to 32GiB. It can use
larger ones , but you have to format them with a real OS, e.g.
using a Linux CD.

Indeed.

cf. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006
The so-called "Limitations of FAT32 File System"

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32
file system in Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 FastFAT driver can
mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file
system (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create one using
the Format tool. This behavior is by design.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(I see this has already been pointed out, and for a more
recent version of Windows. Oh well.)

cf. also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32

The following command will format an entire device as a
single volume (no MBR, "dangerously dedicated" mode)

mkdosfs -F32 -s64 -nFOO -v -I /dev/sdb

 

[Arno]

Arno wrote:

cf. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006
The so-called "Limitations of FAT32 File System"

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32
file system in Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 FastFAT driver can
mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file
system (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create one using
the Format tool. This behavior is by design.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(I see this has already been pointed out, and for a more
recent version of Windows. Oh well.)

People fall for this time and again, because it is so illogical.

Arno

cf. also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32