Formatting a hard drive for a PS3

TheVision · **Posted:** Sat Oct 17, 2009 22:48

*yawn*

Sorry about the tedious nature of this post but can anyone recommend a good, free program that can format a 40gig hard drive to Fat32 to use on my PS3 as an external drive?

Nothing fancy though.. Just nice and simple with as few clicks as possible please!

Dimrill · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:27

Microsoft Windows?

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 3:31

I agree with Dimrill.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

You're both wrong. Since Windows 2000 (I think... maybe XP) Windows won't format any partition larger than 32Gb to FAT32. I seem to remember putting a registry hack on XP to get around this. Alternatively any other OS will do it (Linux boot disc, if you have one).

Grim... · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:46

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:36

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

You're both wrong. Since Windows 2000 (I think... maybe XP) Windows won't format any partition larger than 32Gb to FAT32. I seem to remember putting a registry hack on XP to get around this. Alternatively any other OS will do it (Linux boot disc, if you have one).

I believe the limitation on XP formatting was for setup/install only, because having the system disk as a >32Gb disk would lead to significant performance issues. I have no drive on hand to check this though.

Of course, I have not checked this, having not wanted a FAT32 drive for many, many years.

(Edit: This KB would seem to agree)

Grim... · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 13:18

Quote:

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it. Another option is to start from a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk and use the Format tool included on the disk.

Does that mean you can do it or not?

TheVision · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 13:48

This has confused me all weekend but thanks to Grim... I've got it sorted now! That little program was exactly what I was after. Thanks!

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 15:36

Grim... wrote:

Quote:

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it. Another option is to start from a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk and use the Format tool included on the disk.

Does that mean you can do it or not?

I know. It's not clear what the format tool can do outside of the setup from that, although it implies it's a limitation only present during setup.

I have no desire to find out though. And it doesn't seem as if it's needed beyond the possibilty of out-nerding the Gaywood.

parm · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 21:22

I'm pretty sure I've formatted discs bigger than 32GB in USB enclosures as FAT32 using XP, but it's also quite possible I'm hallucinating.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

The 32Gb limit is mentioned in numerous places:

http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/fo ... tions.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2139527,00.asp
(etc etc)

I am now vaguely wondering if this restriction was lifted in a later service pack.

TheVision · **Posted:** Sun Oct 18, 2009 21:52

I did actually try doing it on Vista through that command prompt line thingy.. and it got to the end and said that the drive was too big.. so it didn't work.

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Formatting a hard drive for a PS3

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