In fact, make two backups, and keep one on a remote service like Google Drive or Dropbox.įormatting a drive will delete all of the data that's currently on it. Your FLASH DRIVE is in FAT-32 format which has file limitation which. Important note: Before you format a drive, make sure that you backup all of your important files. USB Flash Drive (8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB) does not let me transfer files larger than 4GB.
If you're sure you want to go with FAT32, here's how to format a storage drive on Windows 10. But you'd need to be sure that none of those files are greater than 4 GB. For example, if you need to boot up an old computer, maybe with a different operating system, and backup some of its files. These days, the only reason why you'd choose to format a drive to FAT32 is for compatibility. Also, it's a little more difficult to format a drive larger than 32 GB to FAT32 on Windows 10. On the other hand, FAT32's max file size of 4 GB is almost nothing now that phones can record 4K videos. (But it would be nice to have a 128 PB USB drive, wouldn't it?) Note that the maximum drive and file size of NTFS and ExFAT is so large that there's basically no limit. ** 1 exabyte is about 1 million terabytes * 1 petabyte is about 1 thousand terabytes However, though FAT32 is well supported, its maximum drive and file size is severely limited when compared to newer formats like NTFS and ExFAT:
Meanwhile, macOS can only read NTFS drives, and you would need to install third-party software to write back to the drive. Every major operating system will allow you to read and write from a USB flash drive that's formatted to FAT32. Of those three common formats, FAT32 is the oldest and most widely supported. Wrote 15225856 bytes in 0.51 seconds, 28.ADVERTISEMENT FAT32 compared to other formats Warning ALL data on drive ‘d’ will be lost irretrievably, are you sureįailed to allow extended DASD on deviceSize : 62GB 121438208 sectorsĥ12 Bytes Per Sector, Cluster size 32768 bytesģ2 Reserved Sectors, 14821 Sectors per FAT, 2 fatsĬlearing out 29738 sectors for Reserved sectors, fats and root cluster... All rights reserved.Ĭ:\Users\User>cd C:\Users\User\Documents\X\fat32formatĬ:\Users\User\Documents\X\fat32format>dirĭirectory of C:\Users\User\Documents\X\fat32formatĬ:\Users\User\Documents\X\fat32format> fat32format d: Here is a transcript of my command prompt session where I formatted my drive: #3 Open a command prompt and run the fat32format command, with the drive letter you want to format as the parameter.
#2 Extract the downloaded ZIP file in a directory of your choice (C:\Users\User\Documents\X\fat32format in my example below) I ordered a snazzy flash drive from Amazon, prepared to format it in Windows 8.1 and discovered that Windows would not format a drive larger than 32GB as FAT32 ? This issue will likely occur on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Hi guys, Tech James here,In this video, I’ll show you guys how to format any USB/SD/MICRO SD above the size of 64GB to FAT32. This was for use in a Chevrolet vehicle that requires FAT32 and 32K cluster sizes in order to read from high capacity USB flash drive. Recently I needed to format a 64GB USB flash drive as FAT32. It will also cure you not being able to store video files over 4gb in size. Need to format a > 32GB USB flash drive as FAT32 but Windows won’t let you? No problem, here is a free and safe utility that you can use to format your thumbdrive: Make sure to format it NTFS and not FAT32 If I remember right there is a max volume size well below the size of your usb.