Fat32 Format USB Drives Larger than 32GB

Force FAT32 format USB by using a FAT32 formatter. The FAT32 file system is capable of formatting drives larger than 32GB, but some operating systems and disk utilities impose limitations that prevent them from formatting partitions larger than 32GB as FAT32. In Windows, for example, the built-in format utility only allows partitions up to 32GB to be formatted as FAT32. However, third party tools such as this can still be used to format larger drives as FAT32.

It is worth noting that though you can do this, there are some limitations to using FAT32 on drives larger than 32GB. For example, the maximum file size is limited to 4GB. The maximum number of files you can store and directories you can create is also limited to 65,536. Each file and subdirectory can take 2 to 13 entries, based on the length of its name. Additionally, some modern operating systems and applications may not work well with FAT32, so it’s not always the best choice for every situation.

In general, if you’re formatting a large drive and need maximum compatibility and file size support, it’s better to use a modern file system such as NTFS or exFAT. However, if you specifically need to use FAT32 for compatibility with legacy systems, third-party fat32 formatter tools can be used to format those larger drives.

How to Fat32 format USB drives larger than 32GB?

You can use the following FAT32 formatter to FAT32 format USB drives larger than 32GB with a FAT32 file system from within Windows. It will force a FAT32 format on drives of any size up to 2TB, automatically adjusting the partition to fit the space. Yes, even when the volume is larger than the 32GB limit imposed by Windows.

By default, Microsoft Windows will not let you format a volume bigger than 32 GB with a FAT32 filesystem. Which is exactly where this handy tool comes in! This free and portable formatting utility easily works around this limitation. You can use its intuitive GUI to quickly format your USB flash drives or even large internal or external hard drives. Making it easy to format drives with FAT32 regardless of the size.

Note: A key benefit to using a format to FAT32 over the other filesystems, is BIOS USB Bootability. Though one important limitation to note when compared to modern exFAT or NTFS formats, is that files larger than 4GB can not be stored on a FAT32 filesystem. However you could work around this limitation by using multiple partitions of differing types by creating a NTFS or exFat partition for storage, and a Fat32 partition for boot, etc.

A Fat32 Formatter for large USB drives

This Free FAT32 formatter software supports formatting to FAT32 any USB drive all the way up to 2TB in size. So it is at least near future proof!

Fat32 Format Specs

• Extracted Size: 72KB
• Authors Website: Project Home Page
• License: Freeware
• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP

Download the Fat32 Format Tool

You can get the GUI version of this Free utility directly from the authors site. Simply click on the image from the project page to Download the Format FAT32 tool

If you find this tool helpful and useful, you might also like BOOTICE, which can also be used to easily format flash drives.

BOOTICE Partition Flash Drive – Edit Boot Sector