View Full Version : ntfs to fat32


Ed Kukla
November 20th, 2010, 09:01 AM
Client sent a Western Digital Elements hard drive to transfer EX files to. It is a new NTSF drive out of the box.

I can't seem to find any way to reformat the drive for Mac/Fat32.

Piotr Wozniacki
November 20th, 2010, 10:04 AM
I don't know about Mac, but if you can connect it to a PC, type the following in the command shell:

format "drive_letter": /FS:FAT32

Andrew Stone
November 20th, 2010, 10:21 AM
Hi Ed,

To format a disk in OS X using Fat32 file structure, launch "Disk Utility", select the disk in question in the left-hand sidebar, then in the horizontal nav in the upper right quadrant select erase, then you will see a "format" drop down menu, select MS-DOS (fat) and then click the appropriate buttons from there.

-Andrew

Ed Kukla
November 20th, 2010, 11:05 AM
I was thinking of doing a format on a PC in fat32. Any hangups at all in moving to a mac after a fat32 format on a pc?

Craig Seeman
November 20th, 2010, 11:13 AM
MacFuse is free and will allow Mac to write to NTFS drives. It's what comes with Parallels for example, so one can drag and drop between Mac and Windows virtual operating system. There are other options ranging from free to low cost

Download MacFUSE for Mac - FUSE-compliant file system implementation mechanism. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23729/macfuse)

Download NTFS for Mac for Mac - MacFuse and NTFS-3G combined into one to allow full NTFS write/read. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30449/ntfs-for-mac)

Download NTFS for Mac OS X for Mac - Provides full read/write access to NTFS volumes. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26288/ntfs-for-mac-os-x)

Download SL-NTFS for Mac - NTFS disk writing preference pane. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/33603/sl-ntfs)

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac - NTFS driver developed from the popular open source NTFS-3G driver. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/33122/tuxera-ntfs)

Download NTFS-3G for Mac - Read-write NTFS filesystem driver. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24481/ntfs-3g)

Edward Carlson
November 20th, 2010, 11:13 AM
Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select the drive in the left side, then click the Erase tab, change the format to either Mac OS Extended (Mac read and write only) or MS-DOS (FAT) (Mac and PC read and write, 4GB file size limit.)

Ed Kukla
November 20th, 2010, 03:09 PM
Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select the drive in the left side, then click the Erase tab, change the format to either Mac OS Extended (Mac read and write only) or MS-DOS (FAT) (Mac and PC read and write, 4GB file size limit.)



THAT is what I couldn't find...simple.

Thanks

Ed