Formatting a 40GB partition as FAT32

By Quboid
in Microsoft (Windows)

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Grand Master

Quboid

Posted
Posted

How can I format a partition sized 41GB as FAT32?

I just got a new hard drive after my RAID0 disaster. It's a 120GB Western Digital 8MB cache ATA100. I've partitioned it fine - C: 10GB NTFS, Windows installed and D: ~60GB NTFS, general stuff - but I want E: to be FAT32 (for sharing with Linux and Win9X) - it's the rest of the disk, about 41GB. However, Windows (Computer Management) won't format it as it can't format FAT32 over 32GB is size. I know it's possible for it to be bigger as I used to have a @50GB FAT32 partition (back before the RAID disaster, I don't remember how I did this). I can't get a WinME or Win95 bootdisk to do the job either.

Is there a trick I don't know about? Any good third party formatters?

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C:Amie

Posted
Posted

Windows OS's can only format FAT32 partitions up to 32GB.

You are correct that it can be bigger, Theortically up to 2TB, however Microsoft, for what ever reason decided that they were going to push an upper limit for formatting a FAT32 partition. Windows can mount larger FAT32 partitions. You will need to use a third party tool to format the FAT32 partition, either another Operating System, or disk tools like PowerQuest Magic.

If you do any regular work on hard driver partitioning, I recommend PQ Magic. Its relativly inexpencive, about ?60 and has saved many hours of work for me over the years. No Techy should leave home without it!

You could probably get a Windows Millennium boot disk from www.bootdisk.com. Windows 95 boot disks don't support FAT32.. at least Non-OEM ones don't.

Grand Master

Quboid

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I'd rather not spend ?60 on something I'd use about twice a year.

I'll try gDisk if I can get a working Win98 bootdisk.

  Quote
in c promt

format c: /fs:fat32

???? that work  ????:unsure:: :unsure:: :unsure::

That doesn't work - says it's too big. Why does it spend about an hour formatting it just to say that???

Community Regular

NullPointerException

Posted
Posted

You won't need gDisk or anything. Do as c e 3 2 0 said. www.bootdisk.com, get a Win98 boot disk and format the partition. Just don't have a heart attack if you see that the partition you are formating is smaller than 41 GB, it's just that under DOS it can't be measured correctly, it will be 41 GB under Windows.

Grand Master

Quboid

Posted
  • Author
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The Win98 bootdisk idea didn't work. The format program found the partition to be 163MB and it formatted in about 5 seconds. I rebooted and Windows still found it to be useless.

I had a look for gDisk. I found a fair bit (this is the best) but I don't understand how to use it. It seems to be, as the name suggests, a third party fDisk alternative, rather than a third party format alternative. I can't see how to format an existing partition, or even how to create a new partition easily.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Trying to understand why you need it as fat - you have C: as ntfs - with windows on it. You do not mention dual booting. Why do you need it to be fat32 to share files with 9x??

You do not mention multi booting anything - so I am thinking linux and your 9x on other machines??

If so you do not need fat32.

Veteran

darkmark327

Posted
Posted
  BudMan said:
Trying to understand why you need it as fat - you have C: as ntfs - with windows on it. You do not mention dual booting. Why do you need it to be fat32 to share files with 9x??

You do not mention multi booting anything - so I am thinking linux and your 9x on other machines??

If so you do not need fat32.

er, he did mention dual booting

"but I want E: to be FAT32 (for sharing with Linux and Win9X)"

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
  darkmark327 said:
  BudMan said:
Trying to understand why you need it as fat - you have C: as ntfs - with windows on it.  You do not mention dual booting.  Why do you need it to be fat32 to share files with 9x??

You do not mention multi booting anything - so I am thinking linux and your 9x on other machines??

If so you do not need fat32.

er, he did mention dual booting

"but I want E: to be FAT32 (for sharing with Linux and Win9X)"

Er - NO he did not mention dual booting. He states he got a new 120gig drive, ~10gig as NTFS (c:), another ~60gig as NTFS(d:) - ~40gig left - where is he dual booting from?? Cuz 9x or Linux sure aint booting off that NTFS

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Nowhere does he state that he has another drive in the system that he is booting off of, etc.. If so - why not use that space as shared media for booth linux and 9x that are booting off that drive - that he did not mention!

Grand Master

Quboid

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The FAT32 is for shared media. I might have another disk available (it depends what I can salvage out of the wreakage of my RAID0 disaster) but it won't be particularly large. If I can get this, I'm probably make it ext3 and install Debian Linux. If I can't recover this, then the FAT32 space will have it's use giving access to other Linux machines and Win9X machines on my LAN and being accessable by Win9X bootdisk if the need comes up.

I just got this sorted anyway. I happened to find a copy of Partition Magic which I'd forgotten about :whistle: which did the job in about 10 seconds.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
  Quboid said:
If I can't recover this, then the FAT32 space will have it's use giving access to other Linux machines and Win9X machines on my LAN

This is the MYTH I was worried about?? Where did people get the idea that a partition needs to be fat32 for 9x and or linux machines across the LAN to access it??

You can share out any partition type the sharing OS understands to any other machine that knows how to connect to your shares.

9x boxes connect to NTFS shares all of the time in the work place, I share out ext3 to my windows machines using samba - they read and write files from it just fine!

Linux can read NTFS locally without too much trouble, there is a quite a few different tools to give 9x read and write access to NTFS.

FAT is no longer needed people - let it GO!!

Veteran

darkmark327

Posted
Posted
  BudMan said:
  darkmark327 said:
  BudMan said:
Trying to understand why you need it as fat - you have C: as ntfs - with windows on it.? You do not mention dual booting.? Why do you need it to be fat32 to share files with 9x??

You do not mention multi booting anything - so I am thinking linux and your 9x on other machines??

If so you do not need fat32.

er, he did mention dual booting

"but I want E: to be FAT32 (for sharing with Linux and Win9X)"

Er - NO he did not mention dual booting. He states he got a new 120gig drive, ~10gig as NTFS (c:), another ~60gig as NTFS(d:) - ~40gig left - where is he dual booting from?? Cuz 9x or Linux sure aint booting off that NTFS

can you read man? i quoted it right in the post, but here it is agaiI want E: to be FAT32 (for sharing with Linux and Win9X) - it's the rest of the disk, about 41GBb>

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

NOWHERE does he state anything about DUAL booting anything!!! He says he wants to share with 9x and linux - Since he does not mention another drive in the system, and he states that he is using all of his drive. Where would you get the idea that he is dual booting?????

You have had heard the old phrase - never assume anything - come on you no why!! ass-u-me!

And as he states later - it is for sharing with with machines on his local lan. He was just another victim of the OLD MYTH that you need to be fat32 to share to 9x across the network.

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