format

[GilbertsGrape]

i just installed that 120 GB WD drive in my system. the weird thing is that i can only format the drive as NTFS (I am running Win XP pro) the boot drive is NTFS but i would like this new drive to be FAT is there any way to do that.
thanks
GrapeDude

[skynet]

It is really not a good idea to have any drive aboove 20gbs as a FAT drive. Why do you want to?

Make a boot disk for DOS and make sure format and FDISK are on there. Boot up from the disk with only the 120gb Drive active. Then go into FDISK remove the partion, make a new one and then format it.

I am not 100% sure but I think FDISK can do that, can anyone pro/disprove that?

If that doesn't work or is too much give PowerQuest's Partition Magic a try.

[GilbertsGrape]

The reason i wanted to format it as FAT 32 is because i thougth it would allow the data on the drive to me more compatiable with other machines if i ever decided to move the drive to another PC. Am i wrong in thinking this?

L8R,
GrapeDude

[Bires]

Originally posted by GilbertsGrape
i thougth it would allow the data on the drive to me more compatiable with other machines if i ever decided to move the drive to another PC. Am i wrong in thinking this?

Nope. If you ever need to move your HD to another machine (for whatever reason) only machines with Win2000 and WinXP will be able to read the files contained on a NTFS formatted HD.

BTW (My $.02 if you care)
Many ppl like to talk about which file system is better, but I have done some tests...over a weekend I reformatted my HDs in NTFS, installed Win2000 and ran Sandra to test performance, then reformatted in FAT32 and repeated the install and test. The FAT32 format ran about 20% faster than the NTFS format. I hear that WinXP has made some improvements to NTFS, but I've come to really like FAT32.

[GilbertsGrape]

i was told of i use NTFS i would not have to run scandisk and defrage as much is this true.... what format would you format this 120gb drive
Thanks Grape Dude

[NuTs62]

hahaha.. i was just wondering the same thing... i just said screw it, and formatted it in NTFS. Having the exact same setup as Grape. What is the most space a fat32 drive can have? i coulda swore i formatted a drive of 60gb.. winxp wouldnt even give me the option for this 120gb.

[GilbertsGrape]

Originally posted by skynet

Make a boot disk for DOS and make sure format and FDISK are on there. Boot up from the disk with only the 120gb Drive active. Then go into FDISK remove the partion, make a new one and then format it.


I tried this and it will only let me format the drive as 48,895.17m
any other ideas.

[GilbertsGrape]

This just sucks m$ Sucks


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q184006&


You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 FastFAT driver can mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file system (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create one using the Format tool. This behavior is by design. If you need to create a volume larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system instead.

NOTE: When attempting to format a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB, the format fails near the end of the process with the following error:

[Ladogaboy]

Is there an updated Fdisk that you could use?

[d12agonxboi]

if you can, try to get a hold of Partition magic 7, it will let you format a partition into fat32 that is over 32mb, right now i have a 84gb partition in fat32 :) hope that helps

[GilbertsGrape]

Originally posted by d12agonxboi
if you can, try to get a hold of Partition magic 7, it will let you format a partition into fat32 that is over 32mb, right now i have a 84gb partition in fat32 :) hope that helps

I'll Check that out
Thanks
GrapeDude

[hang10wannabe]

fat32 partitions only work with up to 32 gig hd's... anything more and it wont register the extra space... thats why xp partitions in a different manner:hmm: i think....:D