How to format 320GB drive to FAT32

Cymbal Man Freq. wrote:

"John John" wrote in message
...
Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32 GB
but it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating
systems or disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such
large drive FAT32 would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is
nothing stopping you from copying the data from FAT32 drives to NTFS
so I would suggest that you use the NTFS file system.


My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably
has a similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS
drives.


No, this is not at all correct. First of all, note that it's not drives or
file systems that see other drives or file systems; it's the operating
system that does or doesn't do this. File systems don't see or access file
systems, under any circumstances.

So it's Windows Me (not the FAT32 drive it's installed on) that can't see an
NTFS drive. However, Windows XP, whether Home or Professional, can access
NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12, in any combination at all, and regardless of
what file system it's installed on. If Windows XP is installed using FAT, it
can see and access NTFS just as well as if were installed under NTFS. And if
it's installed under NTFS, it can see and access FAT drives without a
problem.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Cymbal Man Freq. wrote:

"Cymbal Man Freq." Don't g wrote in
message ...

"John John" wrote in message
...
Windows XP cannot format FAT32 drives (partitions) larger than 32
GB but it can mount larger FAT32 drives formated by other operating
systems or disk/partitioning/formating utilities. Formating such
large drive FAT32 would be a waste of disk space anyway, there is
nothing stopping you from copying the data from FAT32 drives to
NTFS so I would suggest that you use the NTFS file system.


My Windows Me drive (FAT 32) won't see the NTFS drives. OP probably
has a similar problem where FAT 32 system drive cannot see NTFS
drives. You could either burn stuff to DVD and copy stuff over that
way, or use a FAT 32 120GB USB
2.0 external drive with 4 partitions to copy stuff over.


Probably can't copy from the external HDD to the SATA II drive unless
you have an operating system on the SATA II drive


Nope, not at all true


and it is formatted NTFS.


Nope, not at all true.


NTFS can see FAT 32, but not the other way around.


Nope, not at all true, as I just pointed out in another message in this
thread.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

"emil_lam" wrote in message
ups.com...
| I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
| files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
| followed KB link
|
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....i=&p_topview=1
| to format the new SATAII HDD.
|
| Windows XP only gave NTFS as partition type option. Since NTFS & FAT32
| partitions were incompatible, I couldn't copy the files to this new
| drive unless I changed all my old drive partitions to NTFS. I think
| it's too tedious and risky to change my old HDD partition format. Could
| someone suggest methods for me to copy data safely from my FAT32
| formatted HDD to this SATA HDD ?
|
| Tks

SATA II: Can't you partition the first 2 partitions as FAT 32 @ 32GB each, then
partition the next 2 partitions as NTFS with 125 GB each?

"Cymbal Man Freq." Don't g wrote in
message ...

"emil_lam" wrote in message
ups.com...
| I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
| files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
| followed KB link

You don't need to have the new drive formatted to FAT32 to copy files from a
FAT32 drive.

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when "Cymbal Man Freq."
Don't g opened his gob and said:

SATA II: Can't you partition the first 2 partitions as FAT 32 @ 32GB each, then
partition the next 2 partitions as NTFS with 125 GB each?

Yes.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

"Cymbal Man Freq." Don't g wrote in
message ...
:
: "emil_lam" wrote in message
: ups.com...
: | I just bought the mentioned 320GB HDD and intended to copy over 60GB
: | files from old UDMA 33 HDDs which were all formatted in FAT32. I
: | followed KB link
: |
:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....i=&p_topview=1
: | to format the new SATAII HDD.
: |
: | Windows XP only gave NTFS as partition type option. Since NTFS & FAT32
: | partitions were incompatible, I couldn't copy the files to this new
: | drive unless I changed all my old drive partitions to NTFS. I think
: | it's too tedious and risky to change my old HDD partition format. Could
: | someone suggest methods for me to copy data safely from my FAT32
: | formatted HDD to this SATA HDD ?
: |
: | Tks
:
: SATA II: Can't you partition the first 2 partitions as FAT 32 @ 32GB each,
then
: partition the next 2 partitions as NTFS with 125 GB each?
:
:
The actual size of the drive is probably 296 GB.
Your four partitions are more than that.
--
Ronald Sommer

Wonder if 36 posts is a record? Probably not.

Just thought I'd mention that it also makes no odds what disk format is used
for drives/folders shared over a network. In fact, Linux servers' shares will
most likley use ext3 or Reiser, which Windows can't read at all natively. Yet
they look just the same to clients.

The refusal to format as FAT32 if 32GB is purely a built-in policy of Disk
Administrator, which bears no relation to hardware limits. HST, max sensible
size of a FAT 32 partition is probably about 120GB. Beyond that it gets
_very_ inefficient.

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when Ian
opened his gob and said:

The refusal to format as FAT32 if 32GB is purely a built-in policy of Disk
Administrator, which bears no relation to hardware limits.

The limit is there as some disk utils do not expect such large h/ds
and can corrupt data if the run on disks 65K clusters (IIRC natch).

It's a safety net.

NTFS is faster on 60GB disks, FAT32 faster on 60 GB ones. For discs
also read partitions.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.