Reformat Drive to FAT32

[QFace]

How does one reformat an external hard drive to FAT32 format.
I orginally had the drive as NTFS, but Tiger won't write to it, then I reformated it to HTS+ (I think, whatever the first option in Disk Utility is). But I would like to format to FAT32 so I can use the drive on both a windows box and on my powerbook. How do I reformat my drive to FAT32 in Tiger?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[mad jew]

I can't think of a Tiger solution but hopefully someone else will be able to.

Otherwise, can you get the PC to format it?

 

[TMA]

How do I reformat my drive to FAT32 in Tiger?

I don't think you can.

 

[superbovine]

I don't think you can.

http://macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812

 

[nutmac]

http://macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812

Before proceeding with this tip, be sure to read Tiger compatibility thread on the bottom.

If you don't need to partition the drive (only need 1 FAT32 partition), the most obvious solution is to use Windows.

 

[yellow]

Open Disk Utility.

Select the drive in the window (the DRIVE, not the name of the drive that you've given it).

Select the Erase tab.

Select MS-DOS File System from the select bar.

Click Erase.

poof. FAT32.

 

[ChrisFromCanada]

Open Disk Utility.

Select the drive in the window (the DRIVE, not the name of the drive that you've given it).

Select the Erase tab.

Select MS-DOS File System from the select bar.

Click Erase.

poof. FAT32.

That is exactly what I was thinking

 

[QFace]

Ahhh

Okay, thank you.
I didn't know the MS Dos selection was FAT32... I'm obviously very knowledgeable.

Anyways, I did try MS Dos before I started this thread… it worked with both windows and mac but was much slower than HFS+ or whatever. Too bad there isn’t a format that is fast and cross compatible.

 

[baummer]

Well, you could try my solution: link

 

[jeremy.king]

Okay, thank you.
I didn't know the MS Dos selection was FAT32... I'm obviously very knowledgeable.

Anyways, I did try MS Dos before I started this thread… it worked with both windows and mac but was much slower than HFS+ or whatever. Too bad there isn’t a format that is fast and cross compatible.

For $50 you can pick up MacDrive which will allow your PC to read/write mac formatted disks.

Guess it depends on your need for using the drive on a Windows PC, and what tolerance you have for the "slow" FAT32 filesystem.