If you’ve ever tried to format an external hard drive larger than 32GB to FAT32 in Windows, you’ll have found that your operating system won’t allow it. There are several reasons why it does this, but if your specific situation requires you to use FAT32, you’ll need to find a way.
How to format an external drive to FAT32
FAT32 is actually a great file system and was widely used until people reached its limits. One of the limitations of this file system is that it does not allow you to store a single file larger than 4GB. People who wanted to store files larger than this size switched to other formats such as NTFS which allows you to store really large files on your hard drive.
The format is still in use and there are even situations where it is the only format that works. For example, some of the modern video doorbells that you buy require that your storage devices are in the FAT32 format.
Just because you don’t see the option to format your hard drive to FAT32 in the Windows UI doesn’t mean the ability is gone completely. The feature still exists on your systems and the Command Prompt utility should help you find and use it to accomplish the task.
