How to Format Large Disks to FAT32 on Windows XP and Vista

Format Large Disks to FAT32 on Windows XP and Vista

When you try to format a drive that is larger than 32 GiB, Windows XP and Vista will force you to use the NTFS format, even though it can read and write FAT32 drives of any size. The FAT32 option will not show up under "File system" in the "Format Local Drive" dialog as shown in the screen shot below.

Insight
According to Microsoft, many tasks on a very large FAT32 file system become slow and inefficient.

Unknown to almost everyone, the command-line FORMAT.EXE utility, installed with every copy of Windows operating system, will be more than happy to help you format your drive to FAT32. All you have to do is open up the command prompt and issue the following command:

format drive /fs:fat32

Substitute drive parameter with the drive letter of the drive you want to format into a FAT32 volume. After answering a few confirmation questions, Windows will start to format your large disk to FAT32; no special program needed. :-)

via gearhack.com

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