Fat32 and NTFS on same external drive...POSSIBLE?

cursai

Hey all.
I have a 1tb external hard drive with a ton of movies on it. About 60gbs worth.
The drive is NTFS. Got the drive when i was backing up my data when my computer was being fixed, the repair guy formatted it in NTFS.

My problem is my ps3 only recognises Fat32 so i have to take off the file i want and place it on my smaller FAT32 drive.

Is it possible to create a separate FAT32 partition on my NTFS external drive. Without loss of data on the NTFS drive????:)

Groinshot

cursai wrote: »

Hey all.
I have a 1tb external hard drive with a ton of movies on it. About 60gbs worth.
The drive is NTFS. Got the drive when i was backing up my data when my computer was being fixed, the repair guy formatted it in NTFS.

My problem is my ps3 only recognises Fat32 so i have to take off the file i want and place it on my smaller FAT32 drive.

Is it possible to create a separate FAT32 partition on my NTFS external drive. Without loss of data on the NTFS drive????:)

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

Then reformat your remaining space in FAT32

big man andy

cursai wrote: »

Hey all.
I have a 1tb external hard drive with a ton of movies on it. About 60gbs worth.
The drive is NTFS. Got the drive when i was backing up my data when my computer was being fixed, the repair guy formatted it in NTFS.

My problem is my ps3 only recognises Fat32 so i have to take off the file i want and place it on my smaller FAT32 drive.

Is it possible to create a separate FAT32 partition on my NTFS external drive. Without loss of data on the NTFS drive????:)

I'd imagine Partition Magic would cover that, maybe even Windows. Having a look now.

cursai

Groinshot wrote: »

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

Then reformat your remaining space in FAT32

Cool! can i create a fat32 partition larger than 30gb. I know windows xp couldnt. I'm planning to take all information from the NTFS section and place it on the FAT32.

Also will the FAT32 format take a windows backup file for recovery purposes?

Keyzer

As far as I know, a FAT32 partition has a 32GB limit.

http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm

cursai

I'm running Windows 7 though. surely its been updated.

big man andy

cursai wrote: »

I'm running Windows 7 though. surely its been updated.

Tisn't about 7, tis about the limitation of FAT32!

cursai

big man andy wrote: »

Tisn't about 7, tis about the limitation of FAT32!

MY other External drive which i use for the PS3 is 160gb and formatted in FAT32

big man andy

cursai wrote: »

MY other External drive which i use for the PS3 is 160gb and formatted in FAT32

Yip, my bad. Tis a file size limitation!

:eek:

Gone Drinking

I don't think there's a limit on the size you can format a drive to.. but the largest file you can copy onto a fat 32 drive is 4gig, not a kb bigger

hearny

As stated above the limit is on File Size.

Gparted or Partition Magic will do the trick, but when you are making changes to file systems its important to have a backup of anything on the drive.

Do you need NTFS for anything else, if not you might be better off backing up the files, formatting the full drive in FAT32 and then restoring the files.

Bear in mind though that the NTFS filesystem is more reliable than FAT32.

cursai

hearny wrote: »

As stated above the limit is on File Size.

Gparted or Partition Magic will do the trick, but when you are making changes to file systems its important to have a backup of anything on the drive.

Do you need NTFS for anything else, if not you might be better off backing up the files, formatting the full drive in FAT32 and then restoring the files.

Bear in mind though that the NTFS filesystem is more reliable than FAT32.

Partition magic does work properly on Windows 7 and when it wont create partition bigger than 196000mb

Also windows 7 wont allow FAT32 creation only exfat which doesnt work on PS3

Snowbat

FAT32 maximum file size is 4 GiB minus 1 byte.

FAT32 maximum volume size is 8 TB with 32 kB clusters (or 16 TB with 64 kB clusters but this is not widely supported). XP and Vista are are artificially restricted to creating FAT32 volumes no greater than 32 GB but can handle larger FAT32 volumes.

To create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB, Microsoft suggests using the tools on a Win 98 or ME boot disk :eek:.

mocata

google compuapps swissknife v3, it can format v large fat32 partitions. I used it to do exactly what you need for my ps3

cursai

mocata wrote: »

google compuapps swissknife v3, it can format v large fat32 partitions. I used it to do exactly what you need for my ps3

Thanks. thought of this before but. Swiss knife is not compatible with Windows 7. Have tried it. Wont start! I think the only option is to find a MAC pc and partition on that to FAT32

Fluffy88

You could download Ubuntu stick it onto a USB and boot into Ubuntu from the USB. Then use gparted which will come as standard on Ubuntu to format the disk.
Might be a little easier to find than a Mac :P

rolion

you can convert the partition file format BUT make a full backup of the drive before doing it...which means ,getting another drive !
so,logical,copy over disk2disk,format original from ntfs to fat32 and copy back data...

cursai

rolion wrote: »

you can convert the partition file format BUT make a full backup of the drive before doing it...which means ,getting another drive !
so,logical,copy over disk2disk,format original from ntfs to fat32 and copy back data...

NOT on windows 7. i presume your talking about the windows method. See the earlier posts.

James G

Fluffy88 wrote: »

You could download Ubuntu stick it onto a USB and boot into Ubuntu from the USB. Then use gparted which will come as standard on Ubuntu to format the disk.
Might be a little easier to find than a Mac :P

Or just be more direct and download GParted only.

Fluffy88

James G wrote: »

Or just be more direct and download GParted only.

I wasn't sure did it run on windows and I wasn't bothered to check :P
Thanks for the info.

you_me1314

for your problem, i think it can be reached and also can be recognized by PS3. you can try to use partition manager like aomei partition assistant to shrink ntfs partition to release some unallocated space, then move the unallocated space to the first place, (that's because PS3 only recognize the fat32 partition which placed at the front of HDD, that's also why i suggest you use third party tools because Windows DM can not help you change partition location). the finally step is you can create fat32 partition now, learn more about the instruction:
http://www.extend-partition.com/resource/create-and-make-a-partition.html