Formatting a drive as FAT32 in windows XP?

[Astray]

Im making a storage drive that I can use across multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, and OSX, I decided FAT32 would be the best et becuase I could get full write/read access from most OS's.

Problem is, Windows XP will only let me format as NTFS.

I don't have any previous versions of windows on cd's, so how owuld I got about formatting this drive?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Format it in Linux or OS X.

 

[networkman]

How big is the partition that you're trying to format? FAT32 partition size limitations still apply.

 

[Astray]

Around 100 GB's, But if it's past the limit then I can easily swap it out with a 30 GB or 40 GB

 

[WebDude]

Originally posted by: Astray
Problem is, Windows XP will only let me format as NTFS.

Are you sure about this? I believe you can format fat32 from within XP. It may take opening up a commmand prompt window and typing the command, but I'm pretty sure it can be done.

 

[doan]

XP will only let you do a FAT32 format up to 32GB....if the partition you are formatting is larger, it will not give you the FAT32 option.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Astray
Around 100 GB's, But if it's past the limit then I can easily swap it out with a 30 GB or 40 GB

Microsoft Support: Limitations of FAT32 File System in Windows XP

FAT32 can handle partitions up to about 8 Terabytes and XP can read them. XP just can't format them. You can format a large drive using a Windows 98 Startup floppy.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Format it in Linux or OS X.

Yeah, just quick download Knoppix and use it to format the drive. And keep the Knoppix ISO around. It can be quite handy, and you won't use up anyone's bandwidth the next time you might need it.


Just in case you've not heard of it before, Knoppix is a Linux version that runs off a CD. Download the ISO file, have some CD-burner software write the contents to a CD, and boot off the CD. It takes a little while to boot, as CD drives aren't as fast as hard drives, but it'll get the job done nicely.

 

[scottws]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: Astray
Around 100 GB's, But if it's past the limit then I can easily swap it out with a 30 GB or 40 GB

Microsoft Support: Limitations of FAT32 File System in Windows XP

FAT32 can handle partitions up to about 8 Terabytes and XP can read them. XP just can't format them. You can format a large drive using a Windows 98 Startup floppy.

I'd hate to think about how much space is lost on an 8 TB FAT32 partion versus a 8 TB NTFS partition in cluster size alone.

I converted my g/f's 40 GB FAT32 drive to NTFS and gained almost 4 GB. I think she had 32 GB filled before the conversion.

 

[RebateMonger]

Hard to believe we'll all have TeraByte drives at home in a couple of years. Wow.

Think of all those TeraByte drives out there with no backups.

 

[Nothinman]

I'd hate to think about how much space is lost on an 8 TB FAT32 partion versus a 8 TB NTFS partition in cluster size alone.

The highest cluster size you can use is 64K with 32K being the recommended limit since 64K seems to break some apps. So while it wouldn't be great, it wouldn't be too bad as long as you don't have a ton of small files on the volume.

The biggest problem with FAT volumes is that you can't create files >4G so you can't use them to store DVD images, large VMWare images, other system backups, etc without splitting the files up.

 

[scottws]

Yeah, I ran into that when I set up automatic ntbackups for a user to their external drive. They originally had like 10GB of autoCAD drawings taking up network space, and that was just too much, so we migrated her to saving in local My Computer.

The next day after the first normal schedule backup I VNCed into the system, saw the backup file was only 3.99GB, and saw the log for the backup failed because the volume ran out of space or something like that. I immediately realized the external drive was FAT32 and converted it.

 

[0roo0roo]

i just dos boot and use fdisk

 

[Cdeck]

i just ran into this. if xp just created the partition, you can select fat32 otherwise xp is ntfs only.

 

[thegorx]

I wouldn't format a drive bigger than 80gb fat32, I've always ran into problems with scandisk and chkdsk locking or not working correctly with larger drive partitions formated fat32.

I'm curious, how are you planing on sharing this drive, are you talking about an external drive ?