How to Format a Drive in FAT32 in Windows – Make Tech Easier

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A file system divides a storage device into virtual compartments, almost like a wall of post office boxes, and keeps track of all the information that gets stored in each box. Of those three common formats, FAT32 is the oldest and most widely supported. Meanwhile, macOS can only read NTFS drives, and you would need to install third-party software to write back to the drive.

These days, the only reason why you’d choose to format a drive to FAT32 is for compatibility. For example, if you need to boot up an old computer, maybe with a different operating system, and backup some of its files. But you’d need to be sure that none of those files are greater than 4 GB. Important note: Before you format a drive, make sure that you backup all of your important files. In fact, make two backups, and keep one on a remote service like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Next, right-click on the drive on the left hand side of the File Explorer window and click “Format”:. In the window that pops up, ensure that “FAT32” is selected. Also, feel free to rename the USB drive whatever you’d like:. There are lots of other programs that can format USB drives, but Rufus is really small and portable.

This means you can stick Rufus right on a USB drive, plug it into any Windows computer, and format other drives on the go. Make sure your USB drive is selected. Then, click the “Boot selection” dropdown and select “Non bootable”:. Then, click the “Start” button to format your drive. The specific steps are as follows:. If you meet the problem that Windows built-in tool cannot format your drive into FAT32 successfully, you can turn to a third party software to do this operation.

Step 1. Your partition information will be displayed on the main interface. Step 2. In the pop-up window, choose the file system you need. Step 3. After that, it will go back to the main interface. Best Surge Protectors. Reader Favorites Best Linux Laptops. Best Wi-Fi Routers. Awesome PC Accessories.

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How to Format USB Drives Larger Than 32GB With FAT32 on Windows

 
Best Stereo Amplifiers. These could be false positives and our users are advised to be careful while installing this software. Is there fat32 format windows 10 better method that you know of? It does that by focusing on kbyte sectors, and therefore it can be used only on traditional spinning hard drivers.

 

FAT32 Format GUI Download ( Latest)

 

How to format hard drive to FAT32 on Windows 10? There are several reasons to format a hard drive to FAT32 in Windows For instance, you want to make your drive faster when writing large files to it or make the drive works with non-Windows operating systems. No matter what’s your reason to format your hard drive to FAT32, you’ve landed in the right place.

Here is everything you should know about Windows 10 format disk FAT So, let’s start to learn how to format the drive to FAT32 format and what to do if you lost your important files after the drive formatting.

When you get a new hard drive or while reinstalling Windows, the operating system may request you to format the drive. As the Format dialog doesn’t explain what they are, so we will. The big advantage of the FAT32 file system is that it’s very old. It has been the standard format for hard drives and floppy disks so to maximize compatibility across modern systems including Mac, Linux, and Windows. You should use FAT32 on the drives where there is a requirement for maximum compatibility with a wide range of devices, and you don’t have any 4 GB or larger file in size.

There is a reason behind it. As it is an extremely old file system and that’s why it has two significant limitations:. Both are huge issues for most people. The exFAT is better in terms of file-size limit. The only drawback of the exFAT is that it was introduced by Microsoft and that’s why owns all the patents.

It also means that manipulating this file structure, for instance, write, read and repair operations require a license. Therefore, there are compatible issues while using exFAT. As a result, it makes the FAT32 file system easy to work with, regardless of the file-size limitations.

But, you can’t use the formatting tool if you would like to format FAT32 Windows However, it doesn’t mean there is no way to get the job done. While you can’t select the FAT32 file system in the regular Windows 10 formatting tool, you can yet do it without any third-party software. As formatting means deletion of everything and that’s why it is recommended to create a backup of your important files before you proceed further. Command Prompt is Windows Command Processor and it is used to perform commands in the Windows system.

If you are good at working with commands, then you can try to format your hard drive to FAT32 using the command prompt. Once finding it, right-click it and choose “Run as administrator” option. Step 4 Now, you need to type the following commands and press the “Enter” key after each command. You’re probably familiar with this tool if you’ve been a user of a Windows 10 system for quite some time. Here, you need to replace the “D” with your drive letter. In a while, it will format your hard drive to FAT Attention: Windows 10 fat32 format will make all your data existed in the hardd rive lose, please backup your important data before formatting the hard drive to FAT32 to avoid data loss.

There are times when you end up losing your important data after performing drive formatting to FAT In such cases, a backup comes quite in hand to restore the lost files with ease.

But, what if there is no backup and you want to recover the files stored in the formatted FAT32 drive? In such scenarios, all you need is the best data recovery software like iSkysoft to help you rescue your data.

With the assistance of Recoverit IS software, you can get back your lost data in no time. It can help you recover any type of file from your formatted drive.

In short, it can recover everything from external drives and computers. It has a simple interface, which makes the data recovery easy even for a non-tech savvy person. Step 1 Select a location. Install and run Recoverit IS. Then, select the drive from where you lost the files and click the “Start” button to continue with the process. Step 2 Scan the location. Once hitting the Start button, the software will start the scan process to look for the lost files in your selected drive or location.

Here, you can choose filers or define selections, for instance, choose to scan a specific file path or type. Once the scan process finishes, preview the recoverable files. Select the target ones you would like to recover and hit on “Recover” button to get the selected files back on your system.

Keeping the recoverable data to the location from where you lost them before is not recommended. Instead, choose another safe location.

Using the methods mentioned here can help you in formatting your hard drive to the FAT32 file system on your Windows system. In case if there is data loss after formatting the drive, using Recoverit IS as soon as possible is strongly ecommended recovering your lost files. Otherwise, you could lose your important files forever. Free Download Free Download.

Using iSkysoft, you can recover data from various storage devices including external hard drive, internal hard drive, memory card, pen drive, etc. It is compatible with Windows as well as Mac system. Whether you lost your files due to device formatting, accidental deletion, virus attack, system crash, etc, every data loss situation is covered.

User friendly: Three simple and easy steps to recover files. Elva staff Editor. Format Hard Drive from Command Prompt in Windows 10 Here to learn how to format hard drive, the method to format pc using cmd, and the way to recover data from a formatted hard disk.

Read this article to find out when to do it, how to do it, and which are the potential risks. Want to know how to format hard drive for PS4? This guide will help you format ps4 hard drive and recover data from the formatted hard drive. Fix disk uninitialized with proven ways here! Learn why disk not initialized and how to initialize hard disk without losing data. Best 7 External Hard Drive on Mac: External Storage for Macbook 7 external hard drives for Mac are introduced, and you can learn how to recover data from external hard drive, look and read it here!

 
 

Fat32 format windows 10.How to Format SD Card to FAT32 in Windows 10?

 
 

From the search result, run Windows Powershell with admin privilege. In this part, we show you how to change a hard drive to FAT32 in two cases: important data exist or no important data are saved to your disk.

Free Download Buy Now. Now we come to the end of this post. Four FAT32 formatters are displayed. Much appreciated.

In her spare times, she likes shopping, playing games and reading some articles. Partition Wizard. Download Partition Wizard.

From the following screenshot, you see there is no FAT32 in the file system list. Want to know the solution? Run MiniTool Partition Wizard. Hi Rom, Thank you for posting on Microsoft Community.

We appreciate your interest in Windows We will help you in resolving your issue. Before assisting you further, I would like to ask you few questions related to the issue.

Does the issue persist specifically with one USB drive? Does the USB drive work fine on other devices? When you tried to format the drive, did you get any error message? Step 5: Once the formatting is completed click on OK. Hope this helps! We will be happy to assist you with any issues pertaining to Windows. Thank you. How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. In reply to A. User’s post on October 19, In reply to RomLaura’s post on October 19, Hi Rom, Thank you for keeping us updated on this query. In reply to deleted message. Then, click “Run as administrator” to launch PowerShell with elevated privileges:. Use the File Explorer to double check your drive letter.

Press Enter, make sure your USB drive is plugged in, and press the Enter key again to start the process:. Now get out there and format all your USB drives. But only after you backup everything important! Was this helpful? Is there a better method that you know of? Tweet at me and let me know how you format things on Windows Read more posts.

If you read this far, tweet to the author to show them you care. Tweet a thanks. Learn to code for free. Disk Utilities. Beyond your imagination DiskGenius can do more! Anne Updated on May. If your computer runs Windows 10, you will find it not possible to format partitions larger than 32GB with FAT32 without the help of a third-party formatting tool.

A free SD card format tool — DiskGenius Free Edition DiskGenius is effective disk partition software with which you can partition disk and manage partitions, taking full advantaging of disk space easily and safely. More features about disk partition management: Resize partition: adjust the size of partition without damaging data, e. Partition disk: quickly divide a hard drive or USB drive into multiple partitions and newly created partitions are 4K aligned.

Wipe data permanently: a couple of options are provided to help you erase data, for instance, permanently delete some files, erase an entire partition or disk, erase files which had been deleted. Convert partition format: convert primary partition to logical without losing data, and vice versa. Note: The formatting process will surely remove all data off the SD card being formatted. Thus, you need to create backups for valuable data prior to formatting.

If you just format SD card by mistake, you can use DiskGenius to recover files from formatted memory card.