Reformatting A New NTFS 500 GB USB Ext Hard Drive to Fat32 ...

[Monroe]

Went to Office Max yesterday and bought a new Seagate 500 GB External USB Hard Drive to use with Windows 98SE. When I connected it, the USB icon in the tray appeared but no drive letter was showing in My Computer. Was hoping I could make this work ... Read a review on this particular hard drive and that it would not work with Windows 98SE since it comes pre-formatted for NTFS. However, after searching around on Google last night, I found this little utility that is supposed to reformat a NTFS USB hard drive to FAT32.

http://www.verbatim.com/downloads/format.cfm

How to Reformat a Verbatim Hard Drive for Windows

Verbatim provides a FAT32 format utility (see further below for download instructions) that eliminates the 32GB partition limitation.

There is a link in this part:

Formatting to FAT32

Click here to download the Verbatim FAT32 format utility. Save the file to your computer at a location that can easily be remembered. After the file has finished downloading, close all internet browser windows and browse to the location of the file.

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I didn't think it would have to be a Verbatim hard drive. I don't have an XP computer though ... you will need that since the USB hard drive has to be "seen". I went to a friend's XP computer today and hooked the USB drive up and ran the FAT32 utility. It took about 20 seconds and it was now a USB FAT32 500 GB external hard drive. Tried it on my Win 98SE machine ... showing up as a 500 GB drive as Drive "E" ... it is also backward compatible to USB 1.1 ... I hooked it into a computer that is USB 2.0 (Windows 98SE) and then I hooked it into an older USB 1.1 hub that I still use.

Don't know if this will be of any help to anyone. Maybe someone that also wanted to get a larger external hard drive. Getting hard to find older FAT32 external hard drives these days. That Fat32 utility made everything very easy and painless.

...

Edited March 21, 2010 by duffy98

[jaclaz]

Nice find.

Just for the record, it should possible (from Win98) to use this app:

http://www.compuapps.com/download/swissknife/swissknife.htm

also, you can add USB support to DOS and should be able to use FDISK normally or RPM or similar DOS tools.

jaclaz

Edited March 20, 2010 by jaclaz

[Monroe]

Yes jaclaz, I had found some info about using SwissKnife before I bought the new USB External hard drive. Already had SwissKnife downloaded. I also found info on using FDISK and DOS ... but I am weak on DOS knowledge and after I bought the drive, I got lucky and found the little Verbatim FAT32 utility ... couldn't have been any easier ... at least for me ... maybe for some others also. Thank for the reply.

[Fredledingue]

I thought that XP/Vista had an internal utility to reformat to FAT32.

Yesterday I connected a brand new Toshiba external USB HD, 1.5 Terrabytes on a single partition.

Plugged in my w98 PC, and it works like charm. Just amazing!

It was already formated as FAT32. I don't know if it was formated at the factory or on the Vista platform where it was used the first time.

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

I thought that XP/Vista had an internal utility to reformat to FAT32.

Microsoft intentionally handicapped all NT-based OS's such that they can't natively format FAT32 volumes larger than 32 gb - but they have no problems if you attach FAT32 volumes to them that are already formatted and exceed 32 gb in size.

I would think that handicap also extends to USB drives as well.

[rloew]

I thought that XP/Vista had an internal utility to reformat to FAT32.

Yesterday I connected a brand new Toshiba external USB HD, 1.5 Terrabytes on a single partition.

Plugged in my w98 PC, and it works like charm. Just amazing!

It was already formated as FAT32. I don't know if it was formated at the factory or on the Vista platform where it was used the first time.

Windows 9X has a bug that affects Partitions larger than 1TiB. In some cases accessing Directories located more than 1TiB above the start of the Partition will cause lockup. I have written a Patch for this.