Format To Fat32 Windows 8

  
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Majority of computer users own at least one external hard drive these days. While it’s always a good idea to format the external hard drive with NTFS because of its advantages, sometimes you might have to format your external hard drive with FAT32. For instance, if you want to transfer files from a Mac to your external hard drive, you need to format the drive in FAT32 as Mac OS X doesn’t support transferring files to NTFS drive (doesn’t support writing to NTFS).

Although one can always right-click on a drive, select Format, and then select FAT32 as file system, Windows doesn’t show FAT32 file system option when you are trying to format a drive that is larger than 32GB. So how to format an external drive with a capacity of more than 32GB with FAT32?

Jul 24, 2017  For whatever reason, the option to format USB drives larger than 32GB with the FAT32 file system isn’t present in the regular Windows format tool. Here’s how to get around that. Finding reliable FAT32 formatter? Here you can free download the best FAT32 format tool for Windows 10/8/8.1/7/XP/Vista. Try it to format your external hard drive, USB flash drive or SD card to FAT32 beyond 32GB limit.

There are a couple of ways to format your external hard drive in FAT32, even if it’s larger than 32GB. The best method is to use the native Command Prompt to quickly change the file system to FAT32. Users who aren’t comfortable using Command Prompt can use third-party tools such as FAT32 Format, Seagate DiscWizard (only for Seagate drives) and Acronis True Image Western Digital Edition (supports only WD drives).

In this guide, we are going to show you how to format an external hard drive with FAT32 fie system with the help of native Command Prompt and also with the using a free tool called FAT32 Formatter.

Warning: Formatting a drive will erase all data on the drive. So please backup all data to another drive before formatting your drive.

Method 1:Formatting external drive with FAT32 file system using Command Prompt.

Step 1: Open Command Prompt. To do this, you can type CMD in Start menu search box (Vista and Windows 7), or in the Start screen (Windows 8 and Windows 8.1) and then press Enter key.

It can format 1TB drive to FAT32 effortlessly. As software exclusively designed for Windows systems, it is not only able to work with Windows 7, but also with Windows 8/10, XP and Vista. Besides, it offers more options for file system; apart from FAT32 file system, you are allowed to format 1TB drive to exFAT, NTFS Ex2 or Ex3 to make your drive. Windows 10 doesn't let you format 32GB+ drives to FAT32 file system. In this guide, we will discuss the three ways to format large USB drives to FAT32.

Alternatively, you can open Run dialog box by using Windows logo + R hotkey, type CMD in the box, and then press Enter key to open Command Prompt.

How To Format Usb To Fat32 Windows 8.1

Step 2: In the Command Prompt, enter the following command and press Enter key.

format /FS:FAT32 X:

(In the above command, replace “X” with the drive letter of your external drive. You can find the drive letter of your external drive by opening Computer or My Computer)

You’ll be asked to enter the Volume Label (drive name as it appears in Computer). Type the volume label, press Enter key and finally, press “Y” (without quotes) key to confirm.

Format

Method 2:Formatting external hard drive with FAT32 file system using FAT32 Format software.

(Since Seagate DiscWizard is compatible with Seagate drives only, and Acronis True Image WD Edition supports on WD drives, we are going to use FAT32 Format software, a free software that supports all drives.)

Step 1: Visit this page and click on the FAT32 Format’s picture to start downloading the software. It’s a portable software and doesn’t require an installation.

Step 2: Run FAT32 Format tool. New edition of windows 7.

Step 3: Select your external drive’s drive letter, enter a volume label for the drive, and then click the Start button to begin formatting your drive with FAT32. That’s it! Good luck.

If for any reason, FAT32 Formatter fails to work on your PC, you can use FAT32FileSystem or FAT32 Formatter for the same job.

Active8 months ago

In windows 10, when you want to format a partition specifically as FAT32 (for example an SDcard that is going to be used in your phone) when you right-click the disk and choose format, only NTFS and exFAT are shown as possible format options.

Is there another way, preferably without installing an additional tool or booting into a different mode to format as FAT32?

LPChipLPChip
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3 Answers

While LPChip's answer is 'correct' and should work in most cases unless the partition is over 32gb. I typically use a bit of third party software from ridgecrop that does the same thing but handles larger partitions. I've used their command line fat32formatterextensively over the past few years.

They have a GUI tool that more or less does what it says on the tin now. Formatting speeds are crazy fast and I've not had any issues with it.

Journeyman GeekJourneyman Geek
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Format To Fat32 Windows 10

Yes.

The GUI version of format is limited only to NTFS and exFAT, probably because this is what you'll ever need on Windows.

Luckily if you run format from the command prompt, you can specify far more options to format your disk in.

How To Format External Hard Drive To Fat32 Windows 8.1

Format /? shows the following:

As you can see, /FS:filesystem allows you to format as

FAT (fat16), FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, UDF and ReFS.

Alex
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LPChipLPChip
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I just ran into this issue and found that the Disk Management tool built into Windows can handle this for partitions of 4GB or less.

Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions or search for Disk Management.

Right click on the volume and choose Shrink Volume.., then shrink it to 4GB or less. After that, both FAT32 and Quick Format options will be available in the Format.. dialog.

Sean FujiwaraSean Fujiwara

protected by CommunitySep 8 '17 at 10:12

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