How do I format 250 GB with FAT32 in Linux?

Raveolution · 10-05-2005, 09:21 AM

I have a 250 GB portable hard drive that I cannot format in FAT32 in XP, and I don't have a Windows 95/98 machine anymore to do it with.

I need it formatted in FAT32 because I need read and write access to the partition in XP and Linux, and XP cannot write to an ext2/ext3 partition. Ext2/ext3 makes my drive highly useful at home but then it's totally useless at work, which is where I transport it to on a daily basis. NTFS works at work but is useless at home; Linux cannot write to that because captive-ntfs has been discontinued so it does not work for Fedora Core 3/4.

FAT32 is the only partition type that all OSes will read and write.

Has anyone come up with a solution for this?

Thanks

jtshaw · 10-05-2005, 09:30 AM

mkfs.vfat (aka mkdosfs -F 32) is the tool you want... providing you have the dosfstools installed.

See man mkfs.vfat or man mkdosfs for more information.