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Thread: Formatting FAT32

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    Premium Member Hillsbysa's Avatar
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    Default Formatting FAT32

    For those that aren't aware, you can format external hard drives to FAT32 from the command line using the following line:

    format /FS:FAT32 X:

    Replace 'X' with the letter of your external hard drive.
    Windows will go ahead and format the drive in FAT32!

    No need for third party software such as swissknife (which in my case was not comptabile with Windows 7).

    Placed thread here for those wanting FAT32 format for use with their PVR receivers
    Last edited by Hillsbysa; 06-01-10 at 06:53 PM.



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    Premium Member Hillsbysa's Avatar
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    LOL, I posted too quickly. I've got a line saying "too big for FAT32"
    Back to square one

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hillsbysa View Post
    LOL, I posted too quickly. I've got a line saying "too big for FAT32"
    Back to square one
    You didn't read my little PVR followup for the Vantage 1100HD very closely now did you??

    There is a link there to an applicaton for SwissKnife which gets over the 32GB imposed fat32 limit by Microsoft so you can format drives up to 500GB.

    Cheers,
    Leroy
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hillsbysa View Post
    LOL, I posted too quickly. I've got a line saying "too big for FAT32"
    Back to square one
    I was going to post that your file size will be limited to a bit over 3Gb with FAT 32... but didn't not knowing if that is an issue....

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    Premium Member Hillsbysa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LeroyPatrol View Post
    You didn't read my little PVR followup for the Vantage 1100HD very closely now did you??

    There is a link there to an applicaton for SwissKnife which gets over the 32GB imposed fat32 limit by Microsoft so you can format drives up to 500GB.

    Cheers,
    Leroy
    I did try swissknife (see above), but there are compatibility issues with Windows 7.

    I just found this which works fine from the comment line:


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    Premium Member Hillsbysa's Avatar
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    as a matter of interest, how hany sectors per cluster did you choose ?

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    Best from for any size HDD

  • The Following User Says Thank You to B52 For This Useful Post:

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    Quote Originally Posted by B52 View Post
    Best from for any size HDD
    I think that's only suitable for drives that are being used on media star receivers :P

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    Quote Originally Posted by ssrattus View Post
    I was going to post that your file size will be limited to a bit over 3Gb with FAT 32... but didn't not knowing if that is an issue....
    My drive is 160GB, I think the limit with Windows DOS is 32GB.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hillsbysa View Post
    as a matter of interest, how hany sectors per cluster did you choose ?
    I used the default which I can't check as the app is not on this machine.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hillsbysa View Post
    My drive is 160GB, I think the limit with Windows DOS is 32GB.
    Again I don't know your application limitations but FAT32 can be used for drives up to 2 Tb, but maximum file size is still less than 4Gb. BUT there are many other factors to consider... see

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    Premium Member Hillsbysa's Avatar
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    I read your post too qucikly. A file size of 3 GB is a bit limiting

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    Quote Originally Posted by LeroyPatrol View Post
    I think that's only suitable for drives that are being used on media star receivers :P

    Leroy
    Fat 32 format is a world standard, all is same. No different versions for different boxes.

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    Quote Originally Posted by B52 View Post
    Fat 32 format is a world standard, all is same. No different versions for different boxes.
    you missed the :P at the end lol
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    Post fdisk

    The old fdisk had a 128gig limit,but there was a patched version for bigger drives.
    Since you have to partition the drive before you format,this should be considered.

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    Western Digital have some software available to download to format drives as fat32 - Only for external drives (you could use a enclosure) but not sure if only for WD drives...

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    Just download a copy of swissknife.

    Leroy
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    Try This I uploaded
    Fat32 format

    Last edited by shlocker; 18-04-10 at 11:30 PM.

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    I managed to get swiss knife running under windows 7 if I remember correctly had to check the program compatibility to Windows Xp.

    But running linux gparted is allot better. unsure why windows won't incorporate all fs(eg. ext4, ext3). or why can't our boxes use linux ext partions its open source right?

    I have a box that can supposedly run ntfs but haven't taken the risk with a drive yet.

    thats on this box here



    with another branded firmware.

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    I have formatted a Western Digital 1 TB HDD to Fat32 using the Fat 32 command
    Using Windows 7 so i can't see a problem here.

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