Windows 7 does not have a native option for formatting adrive in FAT32 format through the GUI; it does have theNTFS and exFAT file system options, but these are not aswidely compatible as FAT32.
While Windows Vista does have a FAT32 option, no version ofWindows can format a disk larger than 32 GB as FAT32.
Fat32 Flash Drive
Therefore, to format a drive in FAT32 format, you will have to eitheruse a third-party FAT32 format utility, or manually force Windows toformat your drive as FAT32 from the command line usingdiskpart
.
How to format USB Flash Drive to FAT / FAT32 / NTFS / exFAT using Windows Explorer? FAT or FAT 32 file system is the option selected by default for formatting a USB flash drive on Windows XP. FAT or FAT32 is also the default file system most music players in cars recognise. Type the following into the elevated Command Prompt, replacing X with the drive letter corresponding to the USB drive you want to format to FAT32, and press Enter. Format /FS:FAT32 X: As soon as you press Enter, Windows will begin formatting the target drive to FAT32, and all you have to do is wait for it to do so.
Note: It is not Parallels desktop for windows and linux. suggested that youperform a 'quick format'. The standard format can take significantlylonger, but quick format does not reliably remove some of the previousinformation; this can cause the new boot record not to work correctly.Disk format utilities work on a level lower than you may be typicallyused to seeing, and typically do not display identifiers like the 'C:'or 'D:' drives. If you format the wrong disk, there is very littlepossibility of recovering the data on that disk. Format utilities dotypically show the drive size; use that information to identify thecorrect disk.
Using a third-party utility
Several utilities exist to perform this operation; one is Partition Manager from Active@.This utility is fairly simple to use; however, it does show you allthe disks and partitions on your machine, so be sure to choose thecorrect one.
Manually forcing Windows to format as FAT32
How To Format Usb Drive To Fat32
- In the Start menu, type
cmd
, and then click the entry for the cmd program. - At the command prompt, enter
diskpart
(you might have to approve this operation as an administrator). The prompt line should now display 'DISKPART'. - Enter
list disk
. - Enter
select disk X
, where X is the number of your selected disk. - Enter
clean
. - Enter
create partition primary
. - Enter
select partition 1
. - Enter
active
. - Enter
format fs=fat32
. - Enter
assign
. - Enter
exit
.
Fat32 Flash Drive Not Recognized
You will be back at the standard command prompt. You can now placebootable media on the flash drive and use it as a bootablemedium.