Partition and format to FAT32 on an USB external hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chip
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Chip

Dear all,

I have a new 250G USB external hard drive which come in one partition
and pre-format in FAT32.

I want to re-partition it to two partitions 125G each and then
re-format it to FAT32 format.

Any body know how to do it, please let me know.

Here is the detail of what I have:

Dell notebook running Windows XP SP2 with no floppy drive.

Rgds,
Chip Ling
 
Chip said:
Dear all,

I have a new 250G USB external hard drive which come in one partition
and pre-format in FAT32.

I want to re-partition it to two partitions 125G each and then
re-format it to FAT32 format.

Any body know how to do it, please let me know.

Here is the detail of what I have:

Dell notebook running Windows XP SP2 with no floppy drive.

Rgds,
Chip Ling
Click to expand...


Chip Ling:
I assume that for reasons best known to yourself you do not wish to create
NTFS partitions on your USBEHD. But if you *did* have no objection to
creating NTFS partitions on that drive I assume you would know how to do
this using XP's Disk Management utility, right?

I also assume you do not have available a partition manager type program
such as Symantec's Partition Magic. If you did, it would be a simple matter
to accomplish your objective.

And I guess that you're aware that the XP DM utility does not have the
capability of creating & formatting FAT32 partitions > 32 GB, yes?

Anyway, there are possible ways to do what you want to do within the XP
environment. But before I detail them please confirm that you're really set
on creating FAT32 partitions (rather than NTFS ones) on that USBEHD along
the lines you indicated. And if it's not too much trouble could you indicate
why you want to do so?
Anna

P.S.
And we're further assuming that at the present time there is no data on that
USBEHD that we need be concerned with, right?
 
Chip said:
Dear all,

I have a new 250G USB external hard drive which come in one partition
and pre-format in FAT32.

I want to re-partition it to two partitions 125G each and then
re-format it to FAT32 format.

Any body know how to do it, please let me know.

Here is the detail of what I have:

Dell notebook running Windows XP SP2 with no floppy drive.

Rgds,
Chip Ling
Click to expand...


You'll have to connect that external drive to a Win9x computer, if you
what to create 125Gb FAT32 partitions. By design, WinXP cannot create
and format a new partition greater than 32 Gb. This is because NTFS is
the superior file system, and not nearly as wasteful of drive space.
(If you make a FAT32 partition larger than 8 Gb, you're "throwing away"
significant amounts of storage capacity.)


--

Bruce Chambers

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Bruce Chambers said:
You'll have to connect that external drive to a Win9x computer, if you
what to create 125Gb FAT32 partitions. By design, WinXP cannot create and
format a new partition greater than 32 Gb. This is because NTFS is the
superior file system, and not nearly as wasteful of drive space. (If you
make a FAT32 partition larger than 8 Gb, you're "throwing away"
significant amounts of storage capacity.)
Click to expand...

Connecting a hard drive on one computer that depends on its bios
interpretation of CHS, creating partitions, then moving to another computer
can be problematic.

Gigabit = Gb
Gigabyte = GB

PM from boot media can do the job.

The wasted space scenario depends on the size file(s) saved.
 
Chip said:
I have a new 250G USB external hard drive which come in one partition
and pre-format in FAT32.

I want to re-partition it to two partitions 125G each and then
re-format it to FAT32 format.
Click to expand...


Partitioning can be done in XP's disk management. To format
with FAT32 isn't supported by XP for drives > 32GB because
all users are ideots who cannot decide if they need FAT32
or not.

Here are some solutions:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html#format


Uwe
 
The wasted space scenario depends on the size file(s) saved.
--
Click to expand...

Wrong!

The wasted space depends on the cluster size of the drive.

In NTFS a 125 Gig partiton would be formnatted in NTFS by XP to 2
Kilobyte clusters.

Fat 32 on the other hand would put a cluster size of 32 Kilobytes on
the same size parititon.

Now lets say just for an example...You save a 33 Kilobyte file to your
drive.

In NTFS that file would take 34 kilobytes of space. A waste of 1
kilobyte due to the cluster sizes.

IN FAT 32 that same file would take 64 Kilobytes of drive space. A
Waste of 31 Kilobytes due to the cluster size.

As you can see that wasted drive space will multiply far more rapidly
on at FAT 32 partition than it will on an NTFS one.
 
Wrong!

The wasted space depends on the cluster size of the drive.

In NTFS a 125 Gig partiton would be formnatted in NTFS by XP to 2
Kilobyte clusters.

Fat 32 on the other hand would put a cluster size of 32 Kilobytes on
the same size parititon.

Now lets say just for an example...You save a 33 Kilobyte file to your
drive.

In NTFS that file would take 34 kilobytes of space. A waste of 1
kilobyte due to the cluster sizes.

IN FAT 32 that same file would take 64 Kilobytes of drive space. A
Waste of 31 Kilobytes due to the cluster size.

As you can see that wasted drive space will multiply far more rapidly
on at FAT 32 partition than it will on an NTFS one.
Click to expand...

Uhhh... right. If all you're saving is multimedia files, then it's a
non-issue. How many 32K movies and mp3 files do you have?

So like Jonny said, it depends on *what* you're storing on the drive.
 
Uhhh... right. If all you're saving is multimedia files, then it's a
non-issue. How many 32K movies and mp3 files do you have?

So like Jonny said, it depends on *what* you're storing on the drive.
Click to expand...


If you are saving multimedia files etc then you would most likely want
NTFS anyway. Due to the file size restriction that FAT 32 has.

Again though. Go ahead and use FAT32 and waste disk space all you
want.
 
If you are saving multimedia files etc then you would most likely want
NTFS anyway. Due to the file size restriction that FAT 32 has.
Click to expand...

Maximum file size for a FAT32 partition is 4 GB. Not too restrictive.
 
Folk said:
Maximum file size for a FAT32 partition is 4 GB. Not too restrictive.
Click to expand...

Plus with FAT32 you won't run into any file ownership issues when swapping to different machines,
like may happen with NTFS.
 
Plus with FAT32 you won't run into any file ownership issues when swapping to different machines,
like may happen with NTFS.
Click to expand...

Not to mention moving to a completely different OS....

FWIW, my entire XP SP2 setup is FAT32. Main OS partition of 10 GB,
mp3, gaming partition of 40 GB, multimedia (cough *pr0n* cough)
partition of 180 GB and backup drive of 190 GB. My main reason for
using FAT32 when I set up this box was to be able to access my data
with low-level DOS tools in the event of problems. Now that utilities
to access NTFS partitions under DOS (or other OS's) have matured, I
may format my OS partition as NTFS the next time I do a reload, but
see no reason to use anything other than FAT32 for the remaining
partitions. If I ever decide to ditch Microsoft for Linux, the
transition will be much easier.
 
I need to do the same thing as Chip. The reason why I need fat32 is my
media enclosure only supports Fat32. My HD is 250gb and when I put
more than 127gb of info on the drive (I partitioned it to fat32 in
winxp using linkformatter, but that only allowed one partition) the
files are corrupt. Thus, If i created two partitions of around 120gb
each, they would work.
 
mngrl1 said:
bla bla bla bla cluster size just help the poor man out!

dude create 2 ntfs partions 125gb each using disc management then
open up dos prompt and type

Format (drive letter) say its E: then /v:fat32

so it'll look like this

Format E: /v:fat32

then do your second partion

HOW HARD IS IT GUYS?
Click to expand...

Perhaps if mor could see the entire ancient (6+month old) conversation -
your response *might* make some sense?
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...978deaddbfd/f457a5c02ded0311#f457a5c02ded0311

In any case, I think it was wise to educate someone on what they were
planning on doing and the drawbacks of it. Windows XP will not format
greater than 32GB with FAT32 natively...

Unfortunately - like so many - "Chip" never did return. Nor did the second
poster (Mafils). They may or may not have been helped. Probably will never
know with a post this old.

Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463

Some solutions were given to format GREATER than 32GB with FAT32 formatting.
Here's one:

If you are attempting to format with the native utilities in Windows XP -
and the drive/partition is larger than 32GB - the FAT32 option will not be
available. You are welcome to utilize a third-party utility.

Example:
Format larger than 32GB FAT32 within Windows XP with this utility:
http://www1.mager.org/mkdosfs/
 
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