Windows 10: Creating partition size greater than 32GB in FAT32.

As we all know maximum partition size in Windows is 32GB if fat32. This is oddly a Windows limit, not a fat32 limit

There are various 3rd party tools that will format large drives as fat32.

Today, I needed to format a 64GB drive as fat32 as I needed it to be bootable, and had an idea. I simply created a 32 GB fat32 partition using diskpart. I then tried to use minitool partition wizard (which I always install second after Macrium Reflect) to extend the partition to 64GB, and it worked first time.

:)

 

After formatting external drive, it does not show the size of the entire drive as free.

Windows can't format a FAT32 partition to a size greater than 32GB. You will need to reformat the drive using NTFS to have access to the full capacity.

 

Can I convert a partition being used for Users to FAT32?

Hello Charlie,

Thank you for posting your concern in Microsoft Community and welcome to the Windows 10 Family.

Before you begin, note that the FAT32 file system has size limitations. You can't create a FAT32 partition greater than 32 gigabytes (GB).

Also, if you want to use the FAT file system on the partition with NTFS format, you will need to reformat the partition, which erases all data on it.

Hope it helps.

 

The actual limit to FAT32 partitions is 2 TB, But individual file size is limited to 4 Gigs. Microsoft limited their formatting software to 32 Gig but some third party software did not play by Microsoft rules.