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FAT32 formatting in Windows XP.

Ever noticed that the Disk Management tool in Windows XP won’t let you format your external hard drives or USB flash drives with the FAT32 filesystem? Annoying isn’t it? In the past when i’ve wanted to avoid having to do an NTFS format i’ve resorted to a Linux LiveCD to do FAT32. That’s a bit of a faff though, so i was quite relieved when i happened across “SwissKnife” and “FAT32format” today. Both are free tools for formatting >32gb disks with the FAT32 filesystem under Windows.

I’ve only tried (the GUI version of) FAT32format so far but it worked perfectly and the “quick format” option was, well, very quick on the 80gb drive i tested with. Can’t ask for more really.