Comments on: How to format external hard drive to FAT32 in Windows

By: Jua J.

Jua J. — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:59:27 +0000

Thank you!. I really mean it. After hours of frustration today, finally I was able to reformat the external hard drive to FAT32!

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:51:56 +0000

+1 Kortnie, I was ready to scream until I found this.
Thanks Paul!!

By: Kortnie

Kortnie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:40:31 +0000

Thank you!!! This have been driving me crazy!

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:38:07 +0000

Paul – thank you! The Tokiwa Fat32 exe was so easy and fast. I stopped the DOS attempt after 10 minutes of reading through the other posts.

By: joseph

joseph — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:47:40 +0000

Thank You! I’ve successfully formated the hard disk to FAT 32! These tips are useful!

By: James Mills

James Mills — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:51:26 +0000

Thanks for the advice, SwissKnife has borked my 500gb external hard drive. Definitely not recommended.

By: Crzyninja186

Crzyninja186 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:21:19 +0000

For all the PS3 upgraders…

followed “Felix” advice for the Fat32Formatter… worked great was able to change the format on my WD 1tb my book essential in no time. Took only a couple of mins. to the many other ways ive tried which took at least 6 to 8 hrs and didn’t even work.

By: Glen

Glen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:09:08 +0000

Like most of you, I was trying to reformat my external USB drive (500GB) to FAT32 and the post-frustration search led me here. I can’t help but add the inability to merely format a hard drive to a standard file system to my “What the #*%& is wrong you, Microsoft?!” list. Grrr.

By: Felix

Felix — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:52:19 +0000

I was trying to format my 500GB western digital external so I could do a backup for my PS3 (in the progress of swapping my tiny 60GB HDD with my laptops almost-never-used 160GB), but most of the methods above didn’t work.

Using cmd method took 6-8hrs just to tell me the external was too big for FAT32. Swissknive and fat32formatter didn’t work. For some reason Fat32Formatter opened and closed immediately. I tried on both, Windows XP and Windows 7.

So I gave up with the 500GB external and tried with a 120GB Seagate external, but same story.

In the end, the program that got the job done without any complains and took less than 5mins was:

Partition Wizard Home Edition (FREE 32 & 64 bit, Win7 Compatible)
http://www.partitionwizard.com.....nager.html

Doing a PS3 backup at this moment. =)

By: hakan

hakan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:01:20 +0000

Dos says: hard drive is too big (Which is really dumb since it tells me after waiting for an hour)

Swissknife keeps crashing.

So what’s the solution for formatting in FAT32?

By: DubbaBee

DubbaBee — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:17:02 +0000

The Fat32Formatter found at http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/index.html works for converting a 250gb WD My passport Essential portable HD. It is simple. It is straightforward. Plus plenty of people have made comments on how to use it if you can’t get it working. My ps3 has recognized it and I have been able to back up my data without a problem. I also used a WD Scorpio Blue 250gb 2.5in SATA HD running at 5400rpm for the internal upgrade for my ps3.

**I did not use the quick format and used the regular formatting for my external in Fat32Formatter.

For ps3 users:
Make sure you buy an external HD that you can then use with your bigger brand new internal HD. When you use the back up function it will take at least an hour (mine took 1hr 7min for backing up 40gb) to back up & reinstall. I bought 2 250gb drives. When you start up your ps3 it will prompt you to format your new HD. You will notice almost immediately that your user information is saved to RAM except for trophies. These are saved via the Sony server and all it takes to retrieve them is a simple Sync. Don’t worry! All is well

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:19:39 +0000

go to cmd and type DISKPART
hit enter
Next type LIST DISK
hit enter
type SELECT DISC 1 (or whatever number disc yours came up as)
then type each comand in individualy:
SELECT DISK 1

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=FAT32

This takes care of the “disc is too big” problem

By: rob

rob — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:18:54 +0000

I used swissknife to try and convert his 500GB HDD into FAT32 so that it would be compatible with his PS3
Swissknife came up with a blank error message (literally a blank notice which i could only click ok on) and then “stopped responding” and now the HDD is corrupted and buggered

EPIC TUTORIAL : /

By: Dawn

Dawn — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:28:38 +0000

I was struggling with formatting my external hard drive until I found these instructions. I knew it would be simple. Thank you.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:37:28 +0000

Omg i owe u a lot! i bought a 500gb HD and it wasnt working with my xbox and i was downloading everything, then when i read this and did what u instructed, it works now with my xbox, Thank you so much.