3 replies to this topic

[5imp7y]

Why cant we format a drive larger than 32 gb to fat 32? I have a 1.5 tb segate with a load of movies and music, and i plugged it into my PS3 to find nothing. So apparently it has to be fat 32 format, well when i tried to Use swiss knife it made the NTSF file system all wac and now when i plug in the external my windows side gets all laggy and such. Normally i boot into linux, BUTTTTT since linux is my "Carry and Go" OS it is on the external so i cannot format the external USING the external. Any help would be GREAT!!!

Notes:
When i plug in the drive while on windows vista, It does not show in my computer, but does show in the partition manager. I thought window just couldn't format fat 32 over 32 gb, but could mount it if necessary?
Crazy stuffsfss

Thanks,
5imp7y

Edited by 5imp7y, 29 December 2010 - 01:44 AM.

[tekio]

Try formatting the drive with another tool. According to MS, the limitation is just governed when formatting from the installer. XP and up should be able to read/write a partition larger than 32GB: http://support.micro....com/kb/314463. You can try formatting it with Gparted.

You could also try dividing the drive into multiple partitions. I came across the same problem with the disk used to store movies, music, books, etc... I ended up getting a super cheap NAS device with Gigabit Ethernet. I formatted the drive in EXT3 (a filesystem the NAS understands) and access the files through sFTP and MS Filesharing. Again, not the ideal solution, since it costs extra money, but its easiest way to share files across multiple OS.


EDIT: for some reason whenever I post a link to the KB article it breaks. So just google kb 314463, it'll be the first hit.

Edited by tekio, 29 December 2010 - 02:49 AM.

[TheFunk]

If the problem continues and Windows won't format it no matter what you try, if you have a CD/DVD drive on your computer you could make a live disk of a Linux distro. Then all you would need to do would be to boot that, and use a tool that it more than likely comes with, such as Gparted (as tekio suggested) to format and partition your external however you like.

If you don't have a CD/DVD drive you could use a flash drive and something like Unetbootin.

Edited by TheFunk, 29 December 2010 - 04:05 PM.

[lattera]

Is FAT32 your only option? Seems like NTFS is the way to go these days. My biggest gripe about FAT32 is that you can't store files bigger than 2GB.