FAT32 Formatting under Windows XP

[DADINK13]

I have this recurring problem where I can't format a hard drive for FAT32. It's an 80GB hard drive that I use for backup. I want it to be a FAT32 drive because I don't want to run into any security issues in case I ever need to restore the drive. However, Windows WON'T let me format it as FAT32 because the drive is "too big." I tried using PartitionMagic, but since the drive is externally connected via FireWire, it won't work outside of the Windows environment.


Help?

[Michael]

I don't think it's possible for an 80GB hard drive to be formatted as FAT32 with only a single partition. I don't think FAT32 can handle drives that size. You'll probably have to format it as multiple partitions. I forget the exact size that a FAT32 drive can handle, but I think it is pretty small, so you might need a lot of partitions.

[fuuucckkers]

I found the answer to this on my MS website.
You can also read about it here instead:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... us;q154997

Microsoft Windows 2000 only supports FAT32 partitions up to a size of 32 GB.

I'm assuming since Windows XP is based on NT, as is Windows 2000, that's the answer to your problem right there.

[fuuucckkers]

I don't think it's possible for an 80GB hard drive to be formatted as FAT32 with only a single partition. I don't think FAT32 can handle drives that size. You'll probably have to format it as multiple partitions. I forget the exact size that a FAT32 drive can handle, but I think it is pretty small, so you might need a lot of partitions.

You are partially correct. I have 2 80gig drives in my box, neither are partitioned. It's because I run Windows 98se. My guess is that Windows 2000 and XP cannot handle large partitions because they are both based on NT. NT was originaly devoloped back in the early 90's. Therefore it was not programmed to handle large partitions. (well back in the early 90's even a 32gig harddrive or partition was a hell of a lot of space.)

[Robpol86]

my 120 and 160 gb hdds r formatted in FAT32. and im under windows xp. for my 120, i used western digital tools and it solved my problem. hell, my bios only supports 123 gb and w/ that ezbios from western digital, it made my 160 gb maxtor hdd fat32. but it only saw like 140 gb. then i installed xp and partition magic saw the other 20 gb unallocated, so i just extended the partition to 160 (about) in FAT32. if u want 2 use western digital tools, then u need @least 1 wd hdd. then it will work on ne hdd

edit....
i remember that wd tools said that win98 only supports 80 gb and that their tools will fix that prob. and i also heard that win2k and xp can support large FAT32 partitions but it cant format them into fat32.

edit again!...
heres a screenshot. this is after i went partition magic happy, how many partitions to a disk? 4? or unlimited?

[DADINK13]

Here's the thing that I don't understand: Originally FAT32 was able to support hard drives up to two terabytes if my memory serves me correctly.

[Master Jedi]

No I don't believe that's the case. Originally it was 32 GB. FAT16 was 2 GB. NTFS goes up to 16 exabytes. I believe there have been changes in FAT to allow larger partition sizes.

[Robpol86]

actually, D4D1NK13 is right, thats the maximum physical amount FAT32 can support

[mttatkns]

the problem is microsoft doesnt support fat32 anymore, as all hard drives in xp on new computers are ntfs and conversion to ntfs is one-way (you can't convert back). Even though FAT 32 has some advantages, it will probably not be used anymore in a few years