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Fat 32 drive not working in Windows? HELP NOW!

FF_productions

FF_productions

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Apr 16, 2005
2,822
0
Mt. Prospect, Illinois
I'm very frustrated. My dad has this hard drive that contains all his media stuff that I swapped into my PowerMac. I took all of those files, and moved them to another drive, then formatted the drive to FAT32, because it was originally NT Filesystem, meaning I could only read, not write. So I dragged it all back to this drive, and now I'd like to swap the drive back into the PC.

After plugging it all in, the drive doesn't even appear in the hardware list, it's just not there.

Can anybody help me on how I can format this drive so it works in Windows???
 
I think I found the problem??

Is it because it's a 279 gig drive?

I'm just going to have live with having my dad use my mac...

He wants to use HIS machine, it must be SPECIAL for some god forsaken reason..

specs of his pc for ****'s-sake
2.2 ghz pentium 4
512 mb's ram
80 gig drive
2 dead cd-rw/dvd-rom drives inside (forced to use an external dvd burner)
32 mb's nvidia geforce graphics card.

A 14 inch beige CRT because the original 17 inch got warped somehow...

I think my dad needs to buy a new machine..
 
your dad does need a new machine

not sure why FAT32 isn't working tho, i've not formatted a 300GB drive with it, but 200GB worked fine - it's more the 4gb file size that causes most people issues with it. The enclosure it's in is an ATA-6 compatible one tho? If it's on old one it might only support 120GB formatting (but then that would have shown up when you formatted it on the Mac, if you did it in that enclosure).

Other possibilities include some risual Apple-ness in the partition map. On odd occasions i've had to go to Terminal and use fdisk to format FAT32 in a way that Windows was happy with.

[edit] sorry - i read your post wrong. even if the PC doesn't have an ATA-6 compatible IDE controller, it should still see the drive in the hardware list when you put it in the machine (even if it doesn't mount), which implies to me that something is wrong with the way you've put it in - either a cable not plugged in all the way or did you change the jumper settings on the drive when you took it out? Does it show up in the BIOS when the PC is booting up? (they still do that, right?)
 
Why not reformat the drive on the Windows PC to make sure that it can thus read the drive. Then network the Mac and PC (easy if you have a router, which most folk do these days) and transfer files between the two over the network.
 
frankblundt said:
your dad does need a new machine

Other possibilities include some risual Apple-ness in the partition map. On odd occasions i've had to go to Terminal and use fdisk to format FAT32 in a way that Windows was happy with.
)
Click to expand...


In disk utility, it says my Dad's drive is in a Apple partition, so I guess I'll have to change that!!

Yeah my dad will never get a new machine, he has too much faith in it, he's making my uncle fix the pc and re-install XP on it. POINTLESS!!

The damn machine gets viruses even when I don't use it!!!!
 
fdisk is a powerful little utility so be careful. It's pretty easy to wipe your boot disk...!

you need to find out the device name (from the info button in Disk Utilty), -it'll be something like disk2 - then close Disk Utility. Open Terminal and type:
fdisk -i -a dos /dev/rdisk2 (change the number to whatever you got above)

then you can either format the partition with:
newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/rdisk2s1 (changing the "2" again to whatever)

or go back to Disk Utility and choose MS-Dos format for the partition
 
FF_productions said:
In disk utility, it says my Dad's drive is in a Apple partition, so I guess I'll have to change that!!

Yeah my dad will never get a new machine, he has too much faith in it, he's making my uncle fix the pc and re-install XP on it. POINTLESS!!

The damn machine gets viruses even when I don't use it!!!!
Click to expand...

I still don't understand why you can't format it on the PC. That way it's the correct format. Why transfer disks between Mac and PC in the first place. Network.
 
Windows has an artificial limit of 32Gb for a formattable FAT32 partition. It was put in to make people move to NTFS - a better system. XP will however read/check FAT32 partitions of any valid size.

If you haven't done so, you'll need to configure Disk Utility so that it writes an MBR to the disc. Then you'll be able to partition it as one MS-DOS partition that a PC can read.
 

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That's long a thing of the past. I've only been using a Mac for 6 months, but my XP machine which I had before was running two 250GB HDDs formatted to FAT32.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...sing_between_ntfs_fat_and_fat32.mspx?mfr=true

The OS can only run on a 32GB partition, but it can read disks that are up to 2 terabytes in FAT32 as long as that is not your c: drive that the OS resides on.

If you're running 1 disk in a PC then you format your drive into two, one for the OS and have that less than 32GB ( I used 10GB ) as FAT32. Then you format the remaining drive ( say 240GB ) as FAT32 too. You now have two partitions on one hard drive. I installed all my apps on the larger partition and kept just the core OS on the smaller one.

If the disk is a 2nd disk, and windows is already up and running on the primary drive then you can pop the 2nd drive in and format it, in it's entirety, in FAT32 upto 2 terabytes in size.

The size limit is only for the partition on which the OS is installed, not the drive.

That said, FAT32 can only support file sizes if 4GB or less, which rules out movie images, so I prefer to run (or did prefer to run :)) NTFS.
 
Unfortunately that's a load of moose testes.

Windows XP is not capable of formatting FAT32 partitions of over 32Gb in size, regardless of whether the OS resides in it or not. It will read/write partitions of any allowed FAT32 size.

The 250Gb drives which you may have thought you had formatted as FAT (if it was under XP) were formatted as NTFS.
 
FF_productions said:
He wants to use HIS machine, it must be SPECIAL for some god forsaken reason..

specs of his pc for ****'s-sake
2.2 ghz pentium 4
512 mb's ram
80 gig drive
2 dead cd-rw/dvd-rom drives inside (forced to use an external dvd burner)
32 mb's nvidia geforce graphics card.

A 14 inch beige CRT because the original 17 inch got warped somehow...

I think my dad needs to buy a new machine..
Click to expand...

* 2.2 ghz pentium 4 - Decent enough CPU. Will last a few years yet.
* 512 mb's ram - Cheap upgrade.
* 80 gig drive - plug that 2nd hard drive back in and he's good to go.
* 2 dead cd-rw/dvd-rom drives inside (forced to use an external dvd burner). Very cheap to replace. 2 minute job.
* 32 mb's nvidia geforce graphics card. Cheap to replace, and probably entirely suitable for what he does with the PC anyway.

I don't see anything wrong with that PC.
 
Sesshi said:
Unfortunately that's a load of moose testes.

Windows XP is not capable of formatting FAT32 partitions of over 32Gb in size, regardless of whether the OS resides in it or not. It will read/write partitions of any allowed FAT32 size.

The 250Gb drives which you may have thought you had formatted as FAT (if it was under XP) were formatted as NTFS.
Click to expand...

Whether or not XP can do it is moose testes. There's plenty of applications available which run on XP which do the job just fine. I use Partition Magic. But just dump FAT32 and go NTFS. Tiger can read that just fine.
 
except that he said when he put in the PC it didn't even show up in the hardware list, so formatting it with anything on the PC might prove difficult. And it will probably still prove difficult, no matter how it's formatted on the Mac if that remains the case.
 
So what'll he do with the files that he has copied over on the Mac? And he's going to buy partition magic just to format a shared drive?

If more people on the Internets said "Hey you're right" and backed out of the thread instead of flubbing the issue when they're wrong, it'll make them so much less confusing to read.
 
It'll show up in any formatting application as an unformatted drive. It should also appear in device manager. It just won't show up in windows explorer. If it doesn't show up in the device manager then either the HDD is f*cked physically, or he's incorrectly connected it to the PC (perhaps the ribbon cable is flipped or not even connected to the motherboard, or he's forgotten to set the mode of the drive to slave or whatever setting it needs to be depending on if its a primary or secondary drive).

No amount of formatting on the Mac will help if the PC can't see the hardware at all. If it can see the hardware then it can format an unrecognised drive, but if it can't see the hardware then the problem has nothing to do with the boot sector or partition and everything to do with the actual hardware or the way it's connected.
 
Sesshi said:
So what'll he do with the files that he has copied over on the Mac? And he's going to buy partition magic just to format a shared drive?

If more people on the Internets said "Hey you're right" and backed out of the thread instead of flubbing the issue when they're wrong, it'll make them so much less confusing to read.
Click to expand...

Maybe you should apply that same logic to yourself?

After plugging it all in, the drive doesn't even appear in the hardware list, it's just not there.
Click to expand...

That's a hardware issue with the way the drive is connected, the jumper is set, or the drive being knackered. Nothing to do with how it's formatted. So hey, you're wrong too. Go figure.
 
Sesshi said:
So what'll he do with the files that he has copied over on the Mac?
Click to expand...

I'd suggest that disconnecting an internal drive from a PC and moving it across to a Mac is not a sensible option. If that's your idea of a shared drive then you're completely mad. Even using an external USB option seems to be a bit flaky between a PC and Mac (you get all sorts of warnings from the iPod). But an internal drive moved around. That's just risky.

I suggest a router, or a direct network cable connection. Much better, easier, safer, and quicker. And it doesn't result in one broken PC.
 
frankblundt said:
except that he said when he put in the PC it didn't even show up in the hardware list, so formatting it with anything on the PC might prove difficult. And it will probably still prove difficult, no matter how it's formatted on the Mac if that remains the case.
Click to expand...

Indeed. I think we've both come to the same conclusion. He's gotta figure out why his PC can't see the physical hardware first.
 
Sesshi said:
Windows has an artificial limit of 32Gb for a formattable FAT32 partition. It was put in to make people move to NTFS - a better system. XP will however read/check FAT32 partitions of any valid size.

If you haven't done so, you'll need to configure Disk Utility so that it writes an MBR to the disc. Then you'll be able to partition it as one MS-DOS partition that a PC can read.
Click to expand...

This is what I need to do.

I tried connecting to the PC TWICE, and still got nothign in the hardware list.
 
zerolight said:
* 2.2 ghz pentium 4 - Decent enough CPU. Will last a few years yet.
* 512 mb's ram - Cheap upgrade.
* 80 gig drive - plug that 2nd hard drive back in and he's good to go.
* 2 dead cd-rw/dvd-rom drives inside (forced to use an external dvd burner). Very cheap to replace. 2 minute job.
* 32 mb's nvidia geforce graphics card. Cheap to replace, and probably entirely suitable for what he does with the PC anyway.

I don't see anything wrong with that PC.
Click to expand...

I see your point, but I just can't stand windows! Sure I can do all this stuff with the hardware, it's the OS that really kills in the end.

It's been a very unreliable computer for the last couple of years, dealing with viruses and maintaining the computer.

I might get torched to ashes, but if Windows didn't have so much spyware and all that crap, I'd probably build my own speedy PC and would never really use a Mac.

Here's the story behind it all if you care to read:
I've had my Mac in my room, and one day decided to take my computer and switch it with my dad's pc and just leave it in my room, just for Folding. I wanted to show my dad that there is alternatives to Windows, that was a couple of months ago, and now I'm itching to take my computer back and in my room. When we first got the PC, it was a hell of a speed demon, because we were going from a 33 mhz Performa to a 2226 mhz HP pavilion. The machine has broken down, crashed, died, and has had it's screen warped since then. Now we are re-installing windows on it. I think this is it's last chance before I go and kill myself.
 
ok. so problem one - get it formatted as FAT32 on the Mac with the MBR, copy the files onto it.

Problem two.
this will be trickier - how to get the PC to see the drive. FAT32 should be fine, the partitioning should be fine. Have a look at the drive, what are the jumpers set to. It should have directions written on the top of the drive. The jumper pins are usually next to where you plug the power in, and you want the jumper pin on the vertical pair of pins that tell it to use CS (Cable Select)

Now have a look at the IDE ribbon that you're connecting it to in the PC - which plug are you hooking it onto? the one in the middle of the ribbon or the one on the end? Are the plugs coloured? - black for the end one and grey for the middle? (this usually indicates the cable supports cable select). If they're both the same colour you'll need to set the jumper to Master or Slave - which depends on what the drive already on that IDE ribbon is set to - check that too - if the current drive is set to Master then the one you're putting i needs to be set to Slave or vice versa.

Plug it in, make sure the cables are in nice and snug. Boot up with the cover open. does the drive start spinning up? (this will check whether the drive is getting power)

When the PC is booting it usually displays a bunch of info about what it's finding as it goes along (before it gets to the Windows screen) Does it say anything about Master and Slave drives being present on IDE channel 1?

Optionally, there's usually a key you can press during this phase F12 or Delete or something that lets you into the BIOS configuration and you can look there and see whether the drive has been found or not.

Report back answers to as many of these questions as you can if none of this works.

If the power is going in and the jumpers are set correctly then there are other things to look at, but check these first.

I don't think the drive is stuffed (at least not yet) because the Mac is having no problems with it.

FWIW i don't think swapping drives around as a means of file sharing is all that flaky IF you know what you're doing, and you don't know what you're doing when it comes to networking. Networking would be a lot easier, but if it's beyond your capabilities for whatever reason, then so be it.

The main thing is to get your dad's PC fixed. And then padlock it.
 
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