Formatting a hard drive larger than 32GB into FAT32 in Windows 7

Problem

When I try to format my hard drive I only get options for NTFS (or more recently exFAT), but not FAT32

Reason

Windows does not allow you to format a drive into FAT32 if it is bigger than 32GB, this does not mean that it's impossible, you just cant use "windows" to natively do it, you'll need 3rd party software.

Solution

The quick answer: Use a free program called Partition Wizard, which you can download here.

The long answer: At first I thought the problem was because I was trying to format a external USB drive, but alas it turns out that any drive over 32GB results in this problem. I tried many methods before I could get this to work. Partition Magic does not work with windows 7, nor does a program called Swiss Knife, which many other sites suggest. If FAT32 does not show up as an option under windows formatting, you can still try and force it using the command line with:

format: z: /fs:fat32 /q -- BUT even then if the volume is bigger than 32GB you'll get an error

Some people say that MAC users also have a build in utility in their OS that does it, otherwise just use the program I mentioned above.

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