Sometimes we have to format a large, for example over 32GB, SD card, USB Flash Drive or USB mobile hard drive into FAT32 format. The simplest way is use Windows DOS. Open a command window by going to
Start, then
Run and typing in CMD. Now type in
format /Q /FS: FAT32 X: Replace the letter
X with the letter of your external hard drive in Windows. Windows will go ahead and begin formatting the drive in FAT32!
If the disk capacity is over 1TB, 3rd party free tools has to be used. The first one is
FAT32Formatter from Tokiwa. No installation required, select the partition to and format to FAT32. The second free tool is
Verbatim FAT32 Tool which will allow you to convert disk drive to FAT32 in seconds. The 3rd one is
FAT32Format that you can get job done. This is the best and only recommended one so far. No installation required.
It is probably best no to have a mix of NTFS and FAT32 partitions on one drive. Keep only one FAT32 partition per drive is required and only default allocation size is recommended during format.