Formatting NFTS to FAT32

[Beerz101]

I need help Formatting this My Book Elite 2TB to FAT32, so I can play it on my DVD usb. If I decide to go back to NFTS later on will it mess up my hard drive from being FAT32 or will it not make a difference?

[AOUN_G]

format it using disk utility on a mac computer, or use a formatting software on pc to format to fat32.

Whenever u format the drive you need to save your data somewhere else, formatting will erase wutever you have on the drive, but will not make any other difference

[bluejack]

Before you do any thing please go to http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=291&p_created=1023897270&p_s... (Or go to http://support.wdc.com/ and type 291 for answer id in Knowledge Base search)

As this is a 1 tb drive, you can download acronis from http://cache.websupport.wdc.com/atiwd/tih_s_e.exe and install it. Then use the option "Add New Disk" in this acronis program which will help you reformat the drive to fat32.

******** please note: you need a Western Digital ("WD") drive to be in your computer to install acronis.

[AOUN_G]

i dont think acronis wd edition will work for external drives

[mohammedw88]

Formatting the drive from NTFS to FAT32 is complicated especially with the SMARTware drives. What I advise you is to take the backup of the data and use the Acronis WD edition software to format the drive to FAT32.

You can download it from the WD website.

Follow the link below that shows on how to format to FAT32 using the Acronis.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3744&p_created=1254250962&p_...

If it help, please reply.

[mohammedw88]

Formatting the drive to NTFS/FAT32 will not mess-up the system at all. However each time you format the drive, the data will be lost.

[organguy]

Dunno if I should start a new topic with this - but I purchased a MyBook Mirror Edition 2Tb (2x1Tb) drive.  I want to be able to SHARE data between my XP laptop and iMac and I want it set to Raid1 (mirror) as I'm using it as a work drive and want the instant redundancy.

The Mirrored drive was reformatted Fat32 off a Mac and ... you guessed it, XP recognizes it but it won't assign a drive letter or browse the drive.  After MUCH googling I've determined that I have to reformat Fat 32 on the XP machine. 

BUT - how do I do that and keep the drive's mirrored setting?  The Disk and Raid manager utilities in the mac version gave an option for Fat32, but the windows one doesn't.  If I format it using Windows, won't it just give me a 2Tb Fat32 drive?

To restate my question - What's the process to set up a RAID1 (mirrored), FAT32  drive under Windows XP?

TIA,

John

[organguy]

Ok, silly me.  I can't format these drives if Windows can't actually access them can I? 

Since the MyBook is set to RAID1 already - If I take each drive out and format them individually to FAT32 and stick them back in the MyBook enclosure ... will THAT work?   The RAID designation is contolled by the MyBook unit and not part of the drive formatting, correct?

[organguy]

With a little help I seem to have answered the question:

"How do I set-up a MyBook to FAT32, RAID1 (mirror) so that I can read and write on both Mac and PC?"

Here are the steps - be prepared to wipe the drive clean.

1. On the PC, use the Western Digital Disk Management Utility to format the drive as RAID1.  (NTFS is the only option here under Windows).

2. Using the XP Disk Management utility (under Computer Management), select the disk, initialize the drive, but DON'T FORMAT!

3.  Move to the Mac.  Use the Mac OS Disk Utility to format the drive to MS-DOS FAT32.  Check to be sure you can read and write to the drive.  *** Wierdness alert!  The WD disk management utility may show the file system as HFS+, but double checking the Mac will verify that it is FAT32.

4. Check the drive on the PC.

Please post if you've found this successful.  I will be testing the drive with a boatload of data before relying on it, but it seems to be working fine after several reads and writes on both platforms.  The capacity and available space are in sync.

Good luck.

[AOUN_G]

Search for NTFS 3G software and install it on your Mac!