Formatting a 38Gb external drive

[philg]

Hi folks,

I am trying to reformat a 38Gb USB attached drive

Being a "bit old" I am using a command prompt

First off, chkdsk shows me that the disk is currently FAT32 with an allocation unit size of 32K

SO

I do a FORMAT I: /fs:fat32 /a:32k

It trundles along for an age and then reports

"The volume is too big for FAT32"!!!

What do I have to do (and it's for use in another device so it has to be FAT32 otherwise I'd do an NTFS format

Any suggestions VERY gratefully received

Thanks

Phil G

[smorodina]

There is a windows limit of 32 Gb. Personally, I'd partition it with fdisk and then format the partitions, but there are utilities that can perform this task:

http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT 32.htm

[philg]

AHA - (stupid WIndows) - I wish it had said what it meant!

I don't want to partition the drive - it's for use in a digital photo storage device/card reader that my wife uses when "out and about"

We're getting occasional directory corruptions (which scares the hell out of me when it happens as she can suddenly have thousands fewer digital pics than she used to have!) so I wanted to reformat it and ensure there are no bad sectors on the drive

I'll peruse that link you sent

Many MANY thanks

Phil G

[ACtheTROLL]

the limit is only on xp ...
with a 98 system there won't be a problem

[ACtheTROLL]

called away ... back now

USB can sometimes be odd to format .... not every disc conforms to the standard

but
this is worth it's weight in gold
http://files1.extremeoverclocking.com/7c2c1a13 a59cdd06b530e28fc0a3f361/bootdisks/SP27608.exe

if that doesn't work - an alternative is
http://www.compuapps.com/Download/swissknife/s wissknife.htm

[philg]

Wow, Thanks VERY much for that swissknife link - it did EXACTLY what I needed it to do

Cool

I do wish Windows wouldn't always assume IT knows best and remove all alternatives from the user

Grrr

Phil G