Tech: How to format a 1Tb drive to FAT32 on Windows 7 for use on PC & Mac

Posted on June 29, 2010 | 52 Comments

A very techy article for my blog but I needed to share after much research and scratching my head… Tech: How to format a 1Tb drive to FAT32 on Windows 7 for use on PC & Mac. | Windows 7 format fat32

Background: I run my photography Lightoom 2 catalogue from an external WD Passport 500GB drive as I have Lightroom installed on both my PC laptop and my iMac.. so by having my full Lightroom catalogue on both machines (which works well by the way) I can access it all when on the road or back in the studio… without having to worry about duplicate lightroom catalogs, or merging them together. An easy solution.

Problem: I use Windows 7 on my PC laptop, and have just recently bought a WD Passport 1Tb drive (Arrived formatted to NTFS) to replace my overflowing 500Gb drive, but the problem was that Windows 7, by default only lets you format a drive in exFAT32, which (as far as I am aware) is not supported by Apple Mac machines… So, I searched around the internet looking for solutions, and the most common suggestion to help with Windows 7 format fat32 was to try the command line way, which supposedly worked for some people – I tried it however, and it toook my laptop a whopping 12hrs to format the drive, and when the counter flicked over to 100%, it errored with the message “Drive size too big for FAT32″. Great, thanks for the 12hr waste of time. So I don’t recommend the 12hr command line way. After talking to a friend about it later the day he found a link to the Verbatim website, which documented the problems and suggested solution, which was to download the software for Verbatim drives (which mine was not) and format the drive from there.

Solution: After downloading the software from Verbatim, installing the small program, selecting the drive to format – it then formatted the drive to FAT32 in a matter of minutes, which seemed to work. So there you go, don’t wait 12hrs of you want to format a 1 terabyte (1TB) external WD Passport drive, when a little bit of software will allow you to do it in 3 minutes. Don’t forget if you want to you can actually format to FAT32 on your mac, but I needed to find a workaround at the time as I was out of the office with my PC laptop… formatting on the mac is probably the easiest option if you have one to hand. Here comes the long task of copying 500Gb of data onto the new drive, see you in a few days! Windows 7 format fat32 solved. Buy this item: If you would like to have a look at this 1TB drive on Amazon please click here.

Update 7/1/11 Verbatim changed the link, but thanks for a helpful commenter Eric – we have a new link that seems to work – glad you’re finding a use for this post!
http://www.verbatim.com/index/support.php?lang_id=1&cat=9&action=downloads&pid=5411&aid=197

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52 Responses to “Tech: How to format a 1Tb drive to FAT32 on Windows 7 for use on PC & Mac”

  1. Stelrons
    August 21st, 2010 @ 4:43 pm

    I’ve been trying to format a measly 320g Seagate to FAT32 for the past 36 hours in order to fix my PS3 and not one supposed tech on the internat had even the slightest clue.
    Literally, 3 minutes after finding this page everything was done!

    Chris… Thankyou so much for posting this info. I know I’m not appreciating your trade but this post right here is the best thing online for help with FAT32 formatting. Thanx again

  2. Chris Ridley
    August 21st, 2010 @ 4:47 pm

    Hey, I’m glad it helped, and thanks for taking the time to reply! Thanks :)

  3. Nastassia
    August 25th, 2010 @ 2:58 am

    Thank you! I searched everywhere and no website helped beside yours! thank you sooooo much!!!

  4. Tim Bean
    September 7th, 2010 @ 1:31 pm

    External hhd

    Just like the say a big thanks for this article i have tried many programs. cmd, u name it ive tried it and nothing worked until now. After reading your article i was do in less than 3min.

    As a note u will need to disconect the external hhd and then reconnect for windows 7 to recognize it.

  5. Chris Ridley
    September 7th, 2010 @ 1:36 pm

    No problemo! I’m pleased it helped :)

  6. George
    October 13th, 2010 @ 7:53 pm

    This tool did exactly what I needed, finally.

    I bought a 1 terabyte WD Passport USB hard drive for my PS3. I was trying to figure out how to format my disk to FAT32 so the PS3 would read it. I searched Google for a while and the suggestions like Partition Magic, CompuAppps SwissKnife V3 Partition Utility, and Partition Elite either didn’t work with Windows 7 or cost money. Command line options didn’t work either. It was becoming very frustrating.

    This tool formated my drive to FAT32 in minutes and now my PS3 can read the drive! I will note I had to put all my movies into a VIDEO folder on the root folder (NOT a VIDEO folder in a PS3 folder, that didnt work at all).

    Anyway, I’m hoping we can boost this article higher in Google search results when people search “Format USB drive for PS3″ or “format portable hard drive to FAT32″ or “PS3 doesn’t read disk” other common searches to get the disk formatted to FAT32.

    Thanks again.

  7. Chris Ridley
    October 13th, 2010 @ 8:06 pm

    I’m glad it was a help, and thanks for your google fu skillz!

  8. Runn
    October 22nd, 2010 @ 3:04 am

    thank you! this is just what i was looking for. laughable that neither mac nor windows has this capability built in anymore.

    as a side note, i also had to disconnect and then connect the drive again for windows 7 to recognize it…

  9. Andrew
    November 18th, 2010 @ 8:52 pm

    Chris a big thankyou After trying to figure out how to backup my PS3 harddrive (spent 3 weeks), your article made my life so much easier. It is people like you who make computing a lot easier lol.. It took a minute to format my 500 gig simple drive and now my PS3 recognizes it and it is finally backing up. Im going to let everyone know of your article and I have added your webpage to my favourites bar. I will also reccomend your blog to google Tanks a million Andrew AKA on PSN daddie93

  10. Chris Ridley
    November 18th, 2010 @ 10:19 pm

    No problem! Thanks for stopping by and letting me know…! Thanks :)

  11. james bell
    December 4th, 2010 @ 11:53 am

    Hi there, I just read your article and it sounds like the solution I need, but couldn’t find the software on the verbatim site. I think the link has expired. Whats the software called? Thanks :o )

  12. azisme
    December 7th, 2010 @ 12:27 am

    Thanks Chris. You saved me as well, been trying all afternoon to format a drive for my Ford SYNC system. With the Verbatim link, it’s done before I could even finish typing this.

  13. Joe
    December 13th, 2010 @ 9:44 pm

    Can you post the application? Or the actual link? The ne you provided in your post does not lead to a downloadable section. You can e-mail to me if you like…just remove the anti-spam stuff.

    J

  14. James Howell
    December 24th, 2010 @ 10:16 pm

    The other way to approach this problem, which I do for people at work when they have to live in both environments, is to have 2 partitions. One Fat32/NTFS (depending on whether you want your Mac to be able to write as well as read) and then a second partition that is MacOS Journaled for the extra native functionality.

    As long as you set the drive to use an MBR rather than the default GUID when formatting on the mac, Windows will just see the Fat32/NTFS partition, and a Mac will see both, enabling you to move data between them.

    The trick to this working is to ensure you use an MBR partition table, and to have the Fat32/NTFS partition first, as if not Windows will not be able to see it.

  15. Eric
    January 3rd, 2011 @ 6:57 pm

    Thanks very much for the excellent tip. Was able to format a 2tb external drive in a a couple of minutes when some of the pricey software wouldn’t do the trick.

    The link above only goes to the general site and then you have to look around for the file. Here’s a link that will take you right to the tool for download on the verbatim site. Thanks again

    http://www.verbatim.com/index/support.php?lang_id=1&cat=9&action=downloads&pid=5411&aid=197

  16. Andrew
    January 10th, 2011 @ 12:18 pm

    Thank you, thank you thank you…

    12 hours with command line in Win7 didn’t work, this worked in a couple of minutes, the HD box read the drive to its full extent and now we can record.

    Great post that definetely needs to be higher in the search results.

    Thanks again, Andrew

  17. Tom Cox
    January 20th, 2011 @ 8:59 am

    Thanks.
    Quick easy solution.

  18. DB
    January 27th, 2011 @ 3:23 pm

    Been trying to find a way to format a USB HDD to FAT32 for several days so it can be read by my Sony HD Blue-Ray Player (adding this for Google purposes…) – your instructions finally solved my problem! Thx so much!!

  19. Jimmy
    March 9th, 2011 @ 6:41 pm

    Thank you so much. I’ve been trying to do this for the whole week. Gosh
    I can’t thank you enough.

  20. Oyvind Hansen
    March 18th, 2011 @ 7:18 am

    Many thanx from Norway… Praise you AND google, lol

  21. Tim
    April 1st, 2011 @ 11:59 am

    dude….i think they have changed the link again on that website yall are tarking about…I have been trying to figure this thing out forever and its starting to piss me off im getting frustrated why the hell would they make a hard drive without the option of using fat32 damn them ppl for making it difficult

  22. Tomasz
    April 9th, 2011 @ 12:25 am

    New link:
    http://www.verbatim.com/includes/binary_details.php3?show=1&id=840

  23. Joe Mayer
    May 8th, 2011 @ 6:45 am

    Thanks a lot for this really helpful tip. I just wished this would show up in the search-list before the tip with the command line. It was just a matter of seconds.
    BTW: verbatim seems to have moved the link again. I found the tool by searching for “FAT32″ on the verbatim website.

  24. Harm S
    May 29th, 2011 @ 12:13 am

    I just wanted to say thank you so very much for this most helpful post. I had spent a very aggravating morning trying to format the exact same hard drive with no success. Even talking to the support guys was useless. The verbatim software worked perfectly. Thanks again!

  25. Chris Ridley
    May 29th, 2011 @ 9:03 am

    Glad it still works :)
    Thanks!

  26. Azhari Ishak
    June 9th, 2011 @ 8:33 am

    Thank you so much for the tip but the download link took me in circles. Alternatively you can Search “Verbatim FAT32 Tool” in the search on the site.

  27. Golo Sierraavent
    June 11th, 2011 @ 11:19 pm

    thanks for the excellent information. I have searched for 2-3 days for a tool to format my WD hdd 1tb to use on my PS3 but i haven’t had luck, ive only find youtube videos but they do partitions. I went to to the Verbatim site to find the fat32 tool,but no luck. Can somebody post the link.

    thanks again

  28. Golo Sierra
    June 11th, 2011 @ 11:43 pm

    i was missing the winzip program (unzip program). i just completed my 1tb fat32 format without any partitions.

    thanks

  29. anon
    July 5th, 2011 @ 10:28 am

    tool available at the euro site

    http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/downloads_drivers_337_0_3.html

  30. Leigh
    July 10th, 2011 @ 2:01 pm

    Many thanks for this useful guide Chris. I was close to pulling my hair out but thanks to you I get to keep my hair (for a little longer).

    The Verbatim website doesn’t seem to be able to let you download the Verbatim FAT32 Tool but for anyone else struggling to find it I’ve uploaded it to my dropbox here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/63628/verbatim_fat32_tool.zip

    Again thanks Chris!

  31. Chris Ridley
    July 10th, 2011 @ 2:19 pm

    Thanks for the links people. I’ve not tried any of this links, so use caution and at your own risk.

  32. Rick
    July 17th, 2011 @ 12:00 am

    I used the tool available at the euro site, and it worked great! Thanks to anon for posting it’

    http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/downloads_drivers_337_0_3.html

  33. Jim
    July 30th, 2011 @ 3:44 am

    Thank you, Rick!! I formated my 1TB WD My Passport USB 3.0 drive, plugged it into my PS3, and Voila!

    Success. Thank you.

  34. Fred
    August 1st, 2011 @ 11:09 pm

    Rick – You are the man!!!! Thank you very much for the link to format my hard drive to FAT32. Headache is gone!!!!

  35. Robert
    August 7th, 2011 @ 8:01 pm

    that’s a thanks man!

  36. carter
    August 13th, 2011 @ 6:46 am

    thanks rick and to the fellow posters who had the updated links.

  37. Ali
    August 25th, 2011 @ 9:20 am

    Thanks… It works greaaaaaattttt…!!!!!

  38. Robert
    August 31st, 2011 @ 11:32 am

    THANK YOU!!!! I just wish I had found this site before going through that 12 hours of wait -_-

  39. Chaz
    September 10th, 2011 @ 3:29 am

    Genius!! After trying every solution out there I can´t believe it was so simple and fast. Thank you!

  40. reg
    September 13th, 2011 @ 6:23 pm

    thanx for this everyone.Really helped me big time

  41. Trevor
    September 21st, 2011 @ 3:41 am

    Thank You!!! 2TB drive took just seconds!!

  42. Paul
    October 22nd, 2011 @ 7:43 pm

    Thanks, this was very useful. Works under Windows 64 bit.

  43. Cokamosue
    October 26th, 2011 @ 7:47 pm

    Thank you! I needed to format my usb hard drive to fat32 to plug it into my playstation 3 ps3 and it worked in minutes. Just serach FAT32 on the verbatim website if they changed the link again.

  44. Adam
    November 6th, 2011 @ 9:17 pm

    Fab. Life saver!!!!!

  45. Nicole
    November 13th, 2011 @ 8:01 pm

    I am SO happy I found this article. Thank you very much.

  46. T~Roc
    December 11th, 2011 @ 5:58 am

    If you NEED to have it FAT32 for a PS3, then this info is GREAT!!!
    I prefer to have it NTFS though. I don’t use a PS3, I use it for movies, shows and music. Drive becomes limited to only transfer files smaller than 4GB in FAT32, whereas NTFS allows you to store larger files (got some BluRay rips as high as 13GB) and swap between my MacBook Pro and my PC running Windows XP, ultimately playing through a WDTV Media Player.
    Just need to use MacFuse app – AWESOME!!!

  47. Philip Gater
    January 9th, 2012 @ 8:20 pm

    The Verbatim Hard Drive Formatter program now seems to only work on Verbatim drives any ideas ? or know how to get maybe an older version of the program thats not locked down?

  48. Philip Gater
    January 9th, 2012 @ 8:29 pm

    Update to the previous post – I had the wrong file link – Dumb. To get the correct file i went to the site and searched on FAT32 it gave me a link to the file smdk_fat322.zip This is the tool I should have used it worked great took 30 seconds or so for 500GB disk Thanks and sorry about the last post but Ive learned look harder.

  49. Anonymous
    January 13th, 2012 @ 3:50 am

    This is great info but the link to verbatim is broken again. It isn’t so much that the page is invalid but the links on the page for the tool are circular and never lead to something to download :(

  50. Jonathan Stewart
    January 20th, 2012 @ 2:57 am

    i ran the program changed my WD passport essential SE to fat 32 it shows on my computer as fat 32 but when i plug it into my ps3 it does not come up. Can some one help me?

  51. Grzegorz Werszner
    January 28th, 2012 @ 10:44 pm

    Alternatively, you could use a MiniTool Partition Wizard: http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

    Home edition is free, and it’s a nifty app,
    doing excellent job – I’ve just formated external USB HD to FAT32 under Win7 in just a few seconds.

  52. Vincent
    February 5th, 2012 @ 8:29 pm

    working (again) link for formatting tool : http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/downloads_drivers_337_0_3.html

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