Creating a FAT32 partition that’s larger than 32 GB
Problem:
Windows XP doesn’t allow you to format a drive larger than 32 GB in FAT32 - you would essentially need to format it in NTFS. But sometimes, we need to format a large drive in FAT32 - specially external hard disks that we would plug into different computers at different points of time, and NTFS security permissions shouldn’t stop us from reading/writing data.
Solution:
You could either use a third-party disk partitioning program like Partition Magic, that would allow you to do the needful or you could just pop in an MS-DOS boot disk. Yes, DOS!
Warning: The procedure below will erase all existing data from your hard disk.
- Restart your computer, booting through a CD or floppy, to DOS
- At the DOS prompt, type fdisk and Hit ENTER
- Answer Y to answer questions
- fdisk is pretty self-explanatory, so just create the partitions you want/need
- Now, exit fdisk
- At the DOS prompt, type format d: (if D is the drive that needs to be formatted)
- format will run for a while and there you have it - a partition larger than 32 GB and in FAT32.
Additional Notes:
Though some experts say that the maximum size for a FAT32 partition can be 2 TB, I’m not absolutely sure about it. Microsoft says that fdisk can create a partition upto a maximum of 512 GB. You would probably need to use a third-party application to create a larger partition.
I have created single FAT32 partitions on a 40 GB Samsung, a 60 GB Maxtor and an 80 GB Western Digital. Anyone who’s created any other size FAT32 partitions, do let me know.