FAT32 has some issue, one being the fact it has issues formatting large devices, such as larger SDHC cards. In that context, 32G is considered as “large”.
So, I have a 64G and a 128G SDHC card, which I can format NTFS or exFAT and still use the entire volume, but the external devices doesn’t play ball and only reads
FAT32.
This one page
https://www.howtogeek.com/316977/ho…
states you can do two things:
– use format.com with powershell
– use a 3rd party tool
The 3rd party tool ( http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/in…
) actually does the job, but my question is about format.com
Or, it is about ANY tool that is standard to Windows, that can do what is being asked:
– format a larger than 32G device
– retaining all of the respective volume
So, not formatting 32G partitions in a 128G device.
I seriously doubt that format.com would behave differently in PowerShell, because it still is the same tool, so I had a test.
This is my “CMD” run:
C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /V:TEST001 /Q
Insert new disk for drive D:
and press ENTER when ready…
The type of the file system is EXFAT.
The new file system is FAT32.
QuickFormatting 61071M
The volume is too big for FAT32.
C:\>
This is my “Powershell” run:
PS C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /V:TEST001 /Q
Insert new disk for drive D:
and press ENTER when ready…
The type of the file system is EXFAT.
The new file system is FAT32.
QuickFormatting 61071M
The volume is too big for FAT32.
PS C:\>
Tried the same, but without the “Quick” option.
This one takes much longer to run, but it ends in the same.
PS C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /V:TEST002
Insert new disk for drive D:
and press ENTER when ready…
The type of the file system is EXFAT.
The new file system is FAT32.
Verifying 61071M
The volume is too big for FAT32.
PS C:\>
So, all of these fail. Notice that the error message is displayed at the end of the attempt.
For the non-quick runs, that means it runs for a very long time, then fails.
The percentages are displayed during format, but they disappear when the error message is shown.
The error message displayed by format.com (“The volume is too big for FAT32.”) thus is an incorrect statement.
It should read : “This application cannot format a volume with this size in FAT32.”
Somewhere on the net I read this:
FAT32 is limited to 2^32 sectors. With 512 byte sectors that means a 2TB drive
I know that you change the maximum format volume by just changing the allocation unit size,
but that is something else. The allocation unit sizes are neatly explained using
format.com /?
I always assumed that you can overrule many limits, by changing the allocation unit size.
But, that on itself doesn’t quite work, as this still fails:
$ format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:64K /V:TEST003 /Q
Insert new disk for drive D:
and press ENTER when ready…
The type of the file system is FAT32.
QuickFormatting 61071M
The volume is too big for FAT32.
C:\>
$ format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:128K /V:TEST004 /Q
Insert new disk for drive D:
and press ENTER when ready…
The type of the file system is FAT32.
QuickFormatting 61071M
The specified cluster size is too big for FAT.
C:\>
So, next is to change the cluster size, but this involves
some guessing, as it states:
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
So I’m basing on the above statement “With 512 byte sectors (..)”:
C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:128K /N:512 /V:TEST005 /Q
Must enter both /t and /n parameters.
C:\>
So, you must also enter /T
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
Or you get error:
Must enter both /t and /n parameters.
Trying with some:
C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:128K /N:512 /T:100 /V:TEST006 /Q
Parameters not compatible.
C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:128K /N:512 /T:10 /V:TEST006 /Q
Parameters not compatible.
C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:128K /N:512 /T:10000 /V:TEST006 /Q
Parameters not compatible.
C:\> format.com D: /FS:FAT32 /A:128K /N:512 /T:10000000 /V:TEST006 /Q
Parameters not compatible.
C:\>
Looking on Google for this, a lot is referring to ancient MS-DOS usage.
But I’m left with the question:
How do you make this command work ?
You can convert disks to another file-system. I don’t know about DiskMgmt, but you sure can in Minitool. This would let you change from NTFS to FAT32. I haven’t tried that, and the thing is: can you do that with 32G+ partitions/disks ?
There still is a tool called CONVERT.exe, but this one only converts towards NTFS.
I read some things on the net, and it was saying that in older versions of that same tool, you could also convert to FAT32.
And, in older versions of FORMAT.com, you could format a FAT32 disk with more than 32G.
But I don’t know how old that would be, maybe even up to DOS.
edit: The 95, 98 and ME versions of format.com didn’t have an NTFS option. So, that means they would only format FAT32. So, go figure what the biggest disk is you’d want to format, back then.
edit 2: info on the net states you can run a 127GB bootable disk, running Windows 98 and FAT32. When they run the format.com there (in DOS), it displays an incorrect size, but it can actually format a 128+ GB drive. CHKDSK reports the corrct size. Thus, it can do something the format.com in Windows 10 can’t do … But, then the limit is around 128G. In Windows then, all seems OK as the disk has the correct – big -size. Once more it seems: there’s no issue running big FAT32 drives in any Windows, it’s just and only the formatting that is crippled, purposely.
message edited by Looge