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[johnkboy]

I'm having a problem trying to re-format an NTFS 1 terabyte iomega media server hard drive on my network to fat 32. The reason I want to change the format to fat32 is my TV will only play media on a fat 32 drive. I can't access the network drive with formating tools. Any ideas how I can do this without taking the drive out of the case it comes in and hooking it up to my motherboard to format it? I really don't want to take it apart which would cancel warranty etc... I would really like to get the drive reformatted so I can access my media on my TV. The iomega software will reformat the drive with it's own software but it doesn't give the option to change it from NTFS to Fat 32. My OS is Vista and Windows XP Pro

Thank you for any help you can provide for me.

John

 

[4745454b]

If its a network drive it probably came with software to interface with it? Have you tried that? If there is no format Fat32 option in the software, there is probably a reason for that.

 

[johnkboy]

Thank you for the reply and suggestion, you're right it does come with software and the software only offers NTFS, I think this is the normal for all drives now and fat 32 has file size limitations, I would have to live with. But if I can format it to fat32 then I'm able to use it as a media server with my Samsung TV. So I would like to reformat to fat32. I've been around and around with Samsung about their software only recognizing fat 32, I've told the techie that fat32 is old technology and I can't believe they would be using it with a high end LCD tv. But that is what I have to work with so any help to achieve this would be much appreciated.

Thank you for your time
Johnkboy

 

[4745454b]

Correct. If you wanted to use it to rip a DVD to the drive, FAT32 won't allow it. If the software only allows NTFS, its probably this way for a reason. You could brake something if you forced it.

So how does this work? This is a network drive, and you have a TV with a RJ-45 plug on it? I would try to plug your TV into your computer. This works nicely and you don't have to mess with anything.

 

[Paperdoc]

FAT32 has two limits of significance to you. One is the max size of one file. The other is the max size of the hard drive volume. For most FAT32 systems there was limited ability to set the number of sectors in an Allocation Unit. And FAT32 always used a fixed number of entries in its File Allocation Table, so there was a limit to Allocation Units. The net result was that most FAT32 File Systems were limited to sizes less than 100 GB. To use a 1TB drive this way, you'd have to Partition it first into a bunch of smaller Volumes (each would be treated as one unique Drive) and then Format each to a FAT32 File System. The exact max size for one volume (and hence, how many Partitions to make) depends on the max number of Sectors used per Allocation Unit.