Solved How to Format 5TB drive to fat 32

Hazel123 · Aug 15, 2023

hsehestedt said:
NO!

Let's think about this logically - if it was commaon practice to format external hard drives as FAT32, why would Microsoft impose a 32GB limit on FAT32 drives? Yes, I know that it is possible to format much larger drives as FAT32, but the point is that Microsoft really wants you to use NTFS for hard disks (and SSDs), and there are plenty of good reasons for that.

As I stated earlier, I have not seen ANYONE use FAT32 on hard drives in many, many years! Yes, it can be done, that doesn't mean it should. Anything you can do on FAT32 (at least in Windows), you can do on NTFS.

I'll refer you back to the article I pointed to earlier. If you don't feel like reading all of it, read the last paragraph

Thanks - I did read it. It more or less says the same as the other article I linked. When you say something hasn’t been done for years - I’ve been around for years and just doing what I’ve always done - which has worked for me - but point taken. I used to use Linux a lot at one time so maybe it’s out of habit for compatibility.

The Ridgecrop Consultsnts utility allows for converting Ex fat to Fat 32 on larger drives - I’ve used it a number of times. When you can only convert Ntfs to ex fat - then use the utility to convert ex fat to fat 32. It works on 2TB drives but clearly not on 5tb drives - but the solution was posted earlier.

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wabbit · Aug 15, 2023

Hazel123 said:
But doesn’t it depend what you want to put on them and how you want to use them? If they are pre formatted to Ntfs it’s presumably because they think main use would be for making system image backups.

I’ve normally had 2tb external drives. They come as Ntfs. Some I’ve left as Ntfs, some I’ve formatted to Fat 32.

The last 2 2 TB external drives I bought were pre-formatted in exFAT. I kept one as exFAT, which I copy all my pics, docs, music, and other files to just in case I decide to buy a Mac. The other one is formatted with NTFS, which has all my system images of my Windows PC's. As far as flash drives, anything 32 GB or less I format in FAT32. I basically only use FAT32 to make bootable flash drives for Windows install media or Macrium Rescue disks.

Hazel123 · Aug 15, 2023

As I said, I may be out of date, but I remember being told on a Windows forum some years ago, that you couldn’t copy and paste files to an Ntfs drive that had system images on it. That they needed to be on a separate drive in fat 32.

That was before Windows 10.

Scannerman · Aug 15, 2023

hsehestedt said:
The Windows Format utility limits you to 32GB, although you can work around that from the command line as well as diskpart. The absolute max for FAT32 is 16TB, but again, Microsoft discourages that.

I think that you may be confusing 4TB with 4GB. 4GB is the largest size individual file that can be placed on FAT32 partitions.

Yes. Perhaps I am confusing things based on the heading of the original post. That makes sense.
What is the maximum size for MBR vs GPT? I know something is a max of 4TB on external drives.
Had a friend who tried backing up on a 5TB external Seagate and it kept reverting his partitions back to original.

Scannerman · Aug 15, 2023

Hazel123 said:
As I said, I may be out of date, but I remember being told on a Windows forum some years ago, that you couldn’t copy and paste files to an Ntfs drive that had system images on it. That they needed to be on a separate drive in fat 32.

That was before Windows 10.

Probably not a good idea to copy and paste anything onto a drive that has a system image anyway unless it is partitioned and you're copy and pasting to the separate partition. Ideally, it would be best to leave that drive for system images and use a different drive to copy and paste files to.

hsehestedt · Aug 15, 2023

Scannerman said:
What is the maximum size for MBR vs GPT?

MBR is limited to 2TB. For GPT it is 18EB (that's 18 million TB).

antspants · Aug 15, 2023

Scannerman said:
Probably not a good idea to copy and paste anything onto a drive that has a system image anyway unless it is partitioned

I didn’t know this and I am curious. Why?
I have 4 drives that I use for system images (more if you count the SSD’s which only have images)
Of the 4 drives I use for system images, I also have files on them and are always actively deleting and adding files. One even has the My Documents/Pictures/Downloads etc (all personal system folders).
My system images on these drives are made using Windows Image (control panel). I have never once had a problem, knock on wood.
I have been doing this since windows 7.

Scannerman · Aug 15, 2023

antspants said:
I didn’t know this and I am curious. Why?
I have 4 drives that I use for system images (more if you count the SSD’s which only have images)
Of the 4 drives I use for system images, I also have files on them and are always actively deleting and adding files. One even has the My Documents/Pictures/Downloads etc (all personal system folders).
My system images on these drives are made using Windows Image (control panel). I have never once had a problem, knock on wood.
I have been doing this since windows 7.

Why risk corruption? Today there is such an abundance of drives and sizes. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid but I'd rather err on the side of caution when it comes to drives holding system images. I'm thinking it would probably be best not to add other stuff to the drive with the image. Can't really think of one good reason to do it.

antspants · Aug 15, 2023

Scannerman said:
Why risk corruption?

Scannerman said:
Can't really think of one good reason to do it.

But what’s the reason not to do it? What corruption?

Scannerman · Aug 15, 2023

hsehestedt said:
MBR is limited to 2TB. For GPT it is 18EB (that's 18 million TB).

*ouch* MBR is worse than I thought. Thanks for the info.

Scannerman · Aug 15, 2023

antspants said:
But what’s the reason not to do it? What corruption?

Stuff happens. Then again, I don't trust Windows recovery programs anymore. People can do what they like. I'm just saying it's probably not a good idea.

bobkn · Aug 15, 2023

Hazel123 said:
As I said, I may be out of date, but I remember being told on a Windows forum some years ago, that you couldn’t copy and paste files to an Ntfs drive that had system images on it. That they needed to be on a separate drive in fat 32.

That was before Windows 10.

What sort of "system images" do you refer to?

The only system images I have are those made by an imaging utility. Currently, that's Macrium Reflect. The images are stored on NTFS drives. Along with a variety of other files, that were put there by Windows copy & paste.

The usual time I'd use FAT32 would be to make a UEFI bootable USB flash drive. I'm not sure that all UEFI PCs require FAT32, but at least one of my desktop systems does.

MisterEd · Aug 16, 2023

The author of the Windows format dialog takes us on a retro tour of the dialog and explains how and why it was designed and why the system is limited to 32G on FAT32 even for large SD cards.

Blame Me: The Windows 11 Disk Formatter

Scannerman · Aug 16, 2023

I was guessing that Hazel was referring to system images generated by standard Windows recovery software. Which I learned this year is absolute garbage if you use it after EOL. Anyway, it was prejudiced and premature of me to assume this to be the case.

I love this guy. I've been watching his stuff off and on for a couple of years now. A fellow Canadian, eh?

Ghot · Aug 16, 2023

Hazel123 · Aug 16, 2023

Scannerman said:
I was guessing that Hazel was referring to system images generated by standard Windows recovery software. Which I learned this year is absolute garbage if you use it after EOL. Anyway, it was prejudiced and premature of me to assume this to be the case.

I love this guy. I've been watching his stuff off and on for a couple of years now. A fellow Canadian, eh?

It was a few posts back now

But I was mentioning I made the images with EaseUS (free lifetime copy courtesy of this forum!). I did actually use the Windows 7 Image as well as a kind of belt and braces thing after having difficulty reinstalling from an EaseUS image earlier that day. Although using a different program for a belt and braces second image would probably have been better.

Scannerman · Aug 16, 2023

Hazel123 said:
It was a few posts back now But I was mentioning I made the images with EaseUS (free lifetime copy courtesy of this forum!). I did actually use the Windows 7 Image as well as a kind of belt and braces thing after having difficulty reinstalling from an EaseUS image earlier that day. Although using a different program for a belt and braces second image would probably have been better.

So I'm guessing the problem is solved now?

Hazel123 · Aug 16, 2023

Anyway, now that I know I can copy and paste files onto an NTFS formatted external hard drive, still open the files from there and copy them back to a computer, I've formatted the 5TB drive back to NTFS. And tested that. But I still can't get past the slight anxiety that I might need to use that drive on something other than Windows in future. So may just put it back to ex fat or fat 32.

This is historic again and I can't remember where I read it but I thought there was a higher chance of file corruption with ex fat than with fat 32?

Hazel123 · Aug 16, 2023

Scannerman said:
So I'm guessing the problem is solved now?

Originally I was asking how to convert a 5TB drive to Fat 32

After reinstalling laptop from an image and wanting to do file/document backups on new 5TB external hard drive.

Scannerman · Aug 16, 2023

Hazel123 said:
Originally I was asking how to convert a 5TB drive to Fat 32 After reinstalling laptop from an image and wanting to do file backups on new 5TB external hard drive.

You should have no trouble at all doing file backups on NTFS. Of course I'm assuming you're using Win 11.