32 File Allocation Table (FAT32) FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available for Windows. It was introduced in Windows 95 to replace the old FAT16 file system used in MS-DOS and Windows 3. The age of the FAT32 file system has its advantages and disadvantages. The big advantage is that because of its age, FAT32 is the de facto standard.
- FAT32 is a file system that was first introduced to the world in 1996, by Microsoft, which used it in MS-DOS 7.1 and Windows 95 OSR2. FAT32 is the next in line after FAT16 and FAT. The original FAT file system was initially designed and used way back in 1977.
- Usually, you can format a disk to FAT32 in File Explorer and Disk Management. However, if you fail to format hard drive to FAT32 successfully via these two built-in tools and receive formatting errors like ' Windows was unable to complete the format ' or 'The format did not complete successfully', you can turn to DiskPart.exe tool.
Summary :
What is FAT32 partition size limit? Sometimes when you are trying to save a file to an FAT32 partition, you receive 'the file is too large' error message. Such FAT32 partition size limit is annoying. This article tells how to break FAT32 partition size limit.
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About FAT32 Limitations
FAT (File Allocation Table) file system is created in 1977 by Microsoft, and FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is the most popular version of FAT. FAT32 has been widely used all through the DOS years, and can even be used in Mac OS X.
However, FAT32 now is losing popularity due to FAT32 partition size limit.
Why?
To answer this question, we have to mention another file system, which is called NTFS.
NTFS (New Technology File System) is a newer file system. First introduced in 1993, NTFS was not that popular on personal computers until the release of Windows XP in 2001. Then in Windows 7 and 8, NTFS was set as the default file system on new PCs because it is superior to FAT32 in many aspects - more secure, robust, and supports larger file sizes and drives.
Compared with NTFS, FAT32 has following limits:
- FAT32 maximum file size - 4GB. If you have a video larger than 4GB in size, you just can't save it on FAT32 file system; Error 'The File Is Too Large for the Destination File System', 'The Parameter Is Incorrect', or 'Flash Drive Says Not Enough Free Space but There Is Plenty' can occur frequently.
- FAT32 max partition size - 2TB. If you have a 3TB drive, you couldn't format it as a single FAT32 partition. Please note that you need the help of third-party partition manager to create such a large partition. If you turn to Windows Disk Management, the largest partition size it helps to create/format is 32GB.
- FAT32 is not a journaling file system, which means that file system corruption can happen much more easily. With NTFS, changes are logged to a 'journal' on the drive before they're actually made. If the computer suffers power failure during file writing process, the system won't need a long scandisk operation to recover.
- FAT32 doesn't support file permissions. With NTFS, file permissions allow for higher security. System files can be set as read-only so that typical programs cannot modify them, and some users can be prevented from looking at personal files, and so on.
Knowing FAT32 limitations, how to break these limits? Among the many answers, converting FAT32 file system to NTFS catches the point. Next, we will go through how to convert FAT32 file system to NTFS.
The Way to Overcome FAT32 Size Limit
Generally speaking, there are 3 ways to break the 4GB file barrier and 2TB partition barrier of FAT32 file system. Among them, only 2 ways are safe to convert FAT32 to NTFS without bringing any influence on your data. One is to use MiniTool Partition Wizard, the other is to use Command Prompt.
Way 1. Perfect FAT32 Converter - MiniTool Partition Wizard
Here we list MiniTool Partition Wizard as the first choice because it is not only able to convert FAT32 partition to NTFS without brining any data loss, but also is capable of converting NTFS to FAT32 safely. What's more, it breaks the limit of Disk Management, and can create/format/extend a FAT32 partition to the largest extent - 2TB.
Now that we know what MiniTool Partition Wizard is, let's see it in practice:
Here, the FREE partitioning software - MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is strongly recommended due to its reliability and high efficiency. Besides, it is compatible with Windows personal computers, including those using Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10, both 32-bit and 64-bit.
Guide on FAT32 to NTFS conversion by using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition (example based on Windows 10):
Step 1. Launch this program to get its main interface, you can see the detailed information of your disks in disk map and all available operations in action panel:
Step 2. Select the FAT32 partition you are going to convert and choose Convert FAT to NTFS from the action panel or pop-up menu to get the file system conversion window.
Step 3. Click Start button to start converting file system. When it shows Conversion complete, hit Close to exit. At this time, file system conversion is finished without data loss. You can open that partition to have a check.
More Reasons for You to Choose MiniTool Partition Wizard:
As we have said, we list MiniTool Partition Wizard to the first place not only because it can convert FAT32 partition to NTFS without data loss, but also because it can make up for the deficiency of Disk Management when creating/formatting/extending FAT32 partitions.
Next, we would like to show you how powerful MiniTool Partition Wizard is to manage FAT32 partitions.
1. Disk Management cannot create an FAT32 partition larger than 32GB but MiniTool does.
In disk map, click the unallocated space to choose Create Partition. Then in the pop-up window choose FAT32 as the desired file system. Also, you can customize the partition size (no bigger than 2TB)/partition type/partition label/drive letter/cluster size before you click OK. Finally hit Apply to confirm the creation.
2. Disk Management cannot format a partition larger than 32GB to FAT32 but MiniTool does.
In Disk Management, formatting a partition to NTFS is easy, but formatting a partition to FAT32 is more difficult, for it can only format small partitions (no larger than 32GB) with FAT32 file system.
Here we use a 230GB NTFS partition to show the story. Click the 100GB drive and choose Format Partition feature. Then select FAT32 as the target file system. Finally press Apply.
3. Disk Management cannot extend a FAT32 partition to surpass 32GB limit but MiniTool does.
If you want to break FAT32 limitations due to its small partition size in Disk Management, you can also use MiniTool Partition Wizard to extend this partition with free space on the same disk.
Click on the FAT32 partition you want to expand, and choose Extend Partition from the action pane. Then in the Extend Partition window, choose a location to distribute some free space. Finally hit the Apply button.
See! MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is really helpful when you deal with all FAT32 related issues. With intuitive guide user-friendly interface, each task can be finished within a few clicks. Now download this freeware to help you.
Way 2. Command Prompt Helps Us to Break FAT32 Size Limit
Command Prompt is a very useful application available in most Windows operating systems. It is most commonly used to manage dynamic and basic disks, execute batch files, solve Windows boot issues, etc. Hence, we can use Command Prompt to break FAT32 limitations.
Here is the solution:
Step 1. At Start menu, type cmd in search box and run it.
Step 2. In the command shell type convert [drive letter:] /fs:ntfs and press Enter. For example, if you want to convert partition E to NTFS partition, you should type convert E: /fs:ntfs.
Nevertheless, this operation is irreversible. Once we convert a partition to NTFS, we cannot convert the partition back to FAT or FAT32 simply by using this command prompt, unless we reformat the drive or partition to FAT or FAT32 in Windows Disk Management utility, which will erase all data on the partition, including programs and personal files.
Next, we will show you how to reformat FAT32 partition to NTFS to break FAT32 partition size limit.
Way 3. Reformat FAT32 Partition to NTFS
Many users know they can reformat a FAT32 partition to NTFS by using Windows built-in Disk Management Utility, but this will result in data loss. Thus, before you format a FAT32 partition to NTFS, data backup is necessary.
There are two simple ways to back up data in FAT32 partition. You can copy and paste files from the FAT32 partition to another location, or copy the entire FAT32 partition to another location using Copy feature we just mentioned in the former part.
After that, let's start with formatting FAT32 to NTFS.
1. FAT32 Formatter - Windows Explorer
Step 1. Now that the backup is finished, we can right click the FAT32 partition in Windows Explorer and choose Format to continue.
Step 2. Then the format window appears, with many options for you to choose. Here please choose NTFS as the target file system so as to break FAT32 partition size limit, and hit Start button. A warning message appears, saying 'formatting will erase ALL data on this disk.' To format the disk, click OK.
2. FAT32 Formatter - Disk Management
Step 1. We can turn to Disk Management to do this formatting as well. First of all, run diskmgmt.msc to open this utility. Then right click the FAT32 partition and choose Format from the selection box.
Step 2. Then the format box will come out where you should confirm that NTFS is selected as the target file system. Then follow the instructions to confirm.
Do It Yourself
After reading this post, I guess you must have had a general understanding on FAT32 partition size limit, and the ways to break these limits. When was mw released. In a word, converting FAT32 to NTFS without data loss by using MiniTool Partition Wizard or converting through Command Prompt is the best choice.
Now it's your turn to break FAT32 limitations by using either Windows built-in Command Prompt or free MiniTool Partition Wizard. Why not get rid of FAT32 size limit right now to enjoy Blu-ray movies and big games as you wish? We believe you will make a wise choice.
For any questions towards using MiniTool software, leave us comments below.
FAT32 Partition Size Limit FAQ
About FAT32
The existing FAT (file allocation table) file system was invented in 1977 as a way to store data on floppy disks for Microsoft stand-alone Disk Basic. Although originally intended for floppy disks, FAT was modified to be a fast and flexible system for managing data on both removable and fixed media. In 1996, Windows 95 OSR2 came out with FAT32, a new and improved FAT.
With new generations of very large hard drives, the existing FAT data structures has reached the limit of their ability to support ever-larger media. FAT currently can support a single disk volume up to 2 Gigabytes in size. FAT32 is an enhancement of the FAT file system that supports larger hard drives with improved disk space efficiency.
System Requirements: FAT32 cannot be downloaded and is only available with Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98.
Features
FAT32 provides the below enhancements over previous implementations of the FAT tile system:
Supports up to 2 terabytes in size.
FAT32 uses space more efficiently with smaller clusters (e.g., 4 kb clusters for drives up to 8 GB in size), resulting in up to 5% more efficient use of disk space relative to large FAT drives. The below table demonstrates the cluster size for various sizes of hard drives. As you can see, a 32 GB drive or larger supports the same cluster size as FAT16.
| Drive Size | Default Cluster Size |
|---|---|
| Less than 512 MB | 512 Bytes |
| < = 8 GB | 4 Kilobytes |
| < = 16 GB | 8 Kilobytes |
| < = 32 GB | 16 Kilobytes |
| > = 32 GB | 32 Kilobytes |
Facebook desktop application. More robust. FAT32 can relocate the root directory and use the backup copy of the FAT instead of the default copy. The boot record on FAT32 drives was expanded to include a backup of critical data structures, so they are less susceptible to a single point of failure.
More flexible. The root directory of a FAT32 drive is now an ordinary cluster chain, so it can be arbitrarily larger and located anywhere on the drive. FAT mirroring can be disabled, allowing a copy of the FAT other than the first to be active. These features allow for dynamic re-sizing of FAT32 partitions. Note, however, that while the FAT32 design allows for this compatibility, it cannot be implemented by Microsoft in the initial release.
Compatibility
For compatibility with existing applications, networks, and drivers, FAT32 was implemented with as little change as possible to Windows 95's existing architecture, internal data structures, APIs, and on-disk format. However, because 4 bytes are now required to store cluster values, many internal add-on disk data structures and published APIs fail on FAT32 drives. Most applications are unaffected by these changes. Existing utilities and drivers should continue to work on FAT32 drives. However, MS-DOS block device drivers (e.g., ASPIDISK.SYS) and disk utilities for these need to be revised to support FAT32 drives.
Microsoft's bundled disk utilities (format, fdisk, Defrag, MS-DOS ScanDisk, Windows ScanDisk, and DriveSpace) were revised to work with FAT32. Microsoft has worked with the leading device driver and disk utility vendors to support FAT32.
Performance
For most users, FAT32 has a negligible performance impact. Some applications may see a slight performance gain from FAT32. In other applications, particularly those heavily dependent on large sequential write operations, FAT32 may result in a modest performance degradation. The overall effect on raw disk performance is less than 5%, however, and the overall impact on application performance as measured by Winstone is typically less than 1%.
Creating FAT32 drives
In OEM Service Release 2, if you run the fdisk utility on a large system with a drive over 512 MB, it asks whether to enable large disk support. If you answer yes, any partition you create that's greater than 512 MB is marked as a FAT32 partition.
Why not add NTFS to Windows 95?
NTFS is an advanced file system, with support for many features not present in FAT32, including per-file compression, security, and transitioning. It is not feasible to implement NTFS in the memory and compatibility constraints of the Windows 95 platform. Windows 95 still supports real mode MS-DOS for booting and running some MS-DOS-based games. Adding NTFS support to the MS-DOS kernel would have required a significant amount of MS-DOS memory, and that would have precluded the use of many MS-DOS mode games and applications. Protect-mode only support for NTFS would not have allowed Windows to boot from an NTFS volume.
Technical implementations
Because of the compatibility considerations described above, the implementation of FAT32 involved very little change to Windows 95. The Major differences between FAT32 and earlier implementations of FAT are as follows:
Two new partition types are defined: OxB and OxC. Both indicate FAT32 volumes; Type OxC indicates a FAT32 partition that requires LBA (extended INTI3 support).
The boot record on FAT32 drives requires 2 sectors (due to expansion and addition of fields in the BPB). As a result, the number of reserved sectors on FAT32 drives is higher than on FATI6, typically 32. This area allows two complete copies of the boot record to be stored, and a sector, where free space count and other file system information is stored.
The FAT is now larger, because each entry now takes up 4 bytes and there are typically many more clusters than on FAT16 drives.
The root directory is no longer stored in a fixed location.
A pointer to the starting cluster of the root directory is stored in the extended BPB.
The on-disk format directory entries are unchanged, except that the two bytes previously reserved for extended attributes now contain the high order word of the starting cluster number.
MS-DOS APIs that rely on an intimate knowledge of the file system layout fail on FAT32 drives. For instance, GetDPB (int21 h, function 32h), Int 25/26h Absolute disk read/write, and most of the Int 21 h, function 440Dh IOCTLs fail on FAT32 drives. New forms of these APIs are provided in OEM Service Release 2, which work on all FAT drives.
Win32 APIs are not affected by FAT32, except for one additional API called GetFreeSpaceEx() for determining the true free space on a FAT32 volume.
FAT32 FAQ
Which operating systems come with FAT32?
Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.
Can I download FAT32?
FAT32 cannot be downloaded.
Can FAT32 be converted back to FAT16?
Ms Dos Fat32 Mac
Unfortunately, it cannot be converted without erasing all the information that is on the hard drive. To remove the FAT32 and re-initialize FAT16, you must fdisk the hard drive, delete all partitions, and recreate without using extended support (FAT32).
Does Windows NT support FAT32?
Ms-dos Fat32 File Size Limit
No
Ms-dos Fat32 Format
Additional information
Ms-dos Fat32 Mac Os
- See our FAT, file system, and NTFS definitions for further information and related links on these terms.
