Windows 7: A way to format to fat32 from NTFS?

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V4oLDbOY

Gawd
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Feb 3, 2008
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Ok I have a NTFS external HDD, but I cant use that with my PS3 or other devices that require a fat32 HDD.

I've searched all over the internet and no solution. Isn't there a program out there than can do this easily? I have access to a mac, not now but tomorrow.
 
Just right click on the drive and select "Format. . .". You should then seethe format dialog box and at that point you should be able to select FAT32 from the "File System" drop down list.
 
c'mon of course the first thing I did. Does not show as an option. Even doing the command line thing

format /blahblah it doesn't finish after hours of formatting, it fails and says disk to large.

Tried Acronis to make a 250g fat32 partition, failed. This sucks.
 
Yeah, this is retarded. You shouldn't have to jump through hoops to format a FAT32 filesystem...had the same problem formatting a 250GB external for use with my car headunit. I did some poking around and couldn't find a way around the artificial limitation in Win 7. The easiest route is probably just to boot a parted LiveCD.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
 
Well I finally found a solution albeit a retarded and completely stupid one.

So at work my friend brought his macbook since I've heard it is easy to format to ms-dos (fat32). But the formatting process would get stuck at the preparing to format stage. But once out of every 4 or 5 tries it actually started the process, but the progress bar would not move. Eventually gave an error, put in in my pc and it was still ntfs. But I tried it again and instead gave up and unplugged the usb cord while the progress bar was frozen, but before the error. Plugged it into my pc and it registered as fat32. But would not work in my PS3. But now since it at least registered as fat32 Acronis could make a fat32 partition (232gb or whateer the HDD size actually is) without giving me the error. Ughh finally!!!

I'm using it with my PS3 now and it works fine, but damn why the hell did I have to go through that bullshit?
 
Since Vista, Microsoft has removed the ability to format a FAT-32 partition greater than 32GB in size. I won't post it here, but I wrote a long blog-rant about this.

All I was trying to do was create a shareable half-terabyte FAT-32 partition for Windows/OS X on one of my Mac Pros. OS X was happy to comply, which is stupid - there is no reason for MS to block this - sure make NTFS the default, even prompt with a warning that FAT-32 is slow/has file size limits, but don't block it completely!
 
Oh, BTW, I recall now that if you use the command line format tool and specify /fs:fat32, and don't specify a quick format, I believe it works. It just took a lot less time to find a different solution. Full format is dumb.
 
Torq said:
Since Vista, Microsoft has removed the ability to format a FAT-32 partition greater than 32GB in size. I won't post it here, but I wrote a long blog-rant about this.

All I was trying to do was create a shareable half-terabyte FAT-32 partition for Windows/OS X on one of my Mac Pros. OS X was happy to comply, which is stupid - there is no reason for MS to block this - sure make NTFS the default, even prompt with a warning that FAT-32 is slow/has file size limits, but don't block it completely!
Click to expand...
FAT32 was never designed to operate to modern standards. Its biggest weakness is that it can't store file security attributes, which is a problem and potential security issue. It fragments easier, loses data much more easily, and is generally a nuisance. If anything goes wrong with a FAT32 partition, MS gets blamed, so why should they make it easy to get to? It should be shunned like IE6, which is exactly what Microsoft has done - Windows will still read FAT32 drives, but it tries to avoid the creation of new ones.
 
V4oLDbOY said:
I'm using it with my PS3 now and it works fine, but damn why the hell did I have to go through that bullshit?
Click to expand...

Because you took the long route? Could have just opped in the Gparted LiveCD that Keenan linked to, formatted the drive into FAT32 and there you go. That's what I did to my friend's drives to work in their PS3s.
 
Danny Bui said:
Because you took the long route? Could have just opped in the Gparted LiveCD that Keenan linked to, formatted the drive into FAT32 and there you go. That's what I did to my friend's drives to work in their PS3s.
Click to expand...

yeah, but I didn't check the thread. But now since its fat32 and its a drive that I dont really need to sue with anything other than my media devices, I can leave it as fat32 and be done with it.

How would that gparted thing work, boot form the disk, then what? Is it just a formatting/partitioning tool.
 
Arainach said:
FAT32 was never designed to operate to modern standards. Its biggest weakness is that it can't store file security attributes, which is a problem and potential security issue. It fragments easier, loses data much more easily, and is generally a nuisance. If anything goes wrong with a FAT32 partition, MS gets blamed, so why should they make it easy to get to? It should be shunned like IE6, which is exactly what Microsoft has done - Windows will still read FAT32 drives, but it tries to avoid the creation of new ones.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of the technical limitations of FAT-32. Though I'd say MS gets blamed any time there is data loss anywhere near Windows (I worked there in a senior capacity for a good number of years).

It is still the only format that has broad read/write support across platforms however, without resorting to buggy commerical drivers or half-assed open-source ones. Steer people away from it for sure, with suitable defaults and warnings, but blocking it entirely when OTHER systems still fully support it is just typical MS knee-jerk "problem solving".

There's a BIG difference between making something easy to get to, and making it impossible to do from your OS. Even the third-party tools for this don't work properly under Vista or Windows 7.
 
V4oLDbOY said:
How would that gparted thing work, boot form the disk, then what? Is it just a formatting/partitioning tool.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. The interface is fairly similar to the Windows Disk Management snap-in. It's pretty intuitive, download the CD, boot from it, and if you know the basics about partitioning and formatting you should be able to find your way around easily.
 
I don't know if anyone mentioned this but you can use diskpart to make a fat32 partition.
 
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