Fat 32 vs ntfs: Is it necessary to format this drivee to NTFS from Fat32?
609320
FAT32 can create files 4GB or smaller. NTFS became standard with Windows 2000 and is used by XP and I'm sure Vista will use it. So unless you don't need to store files that are 4gb or more in size you probably dont need to worry about it. Personally I do a lot with video creation and saving uncompressed videos can get huge with only minutes of footage, so its useful for me.
361573
Mine came formatted with the FAT32 file system so I changed it to NTFS and it did it just fine!
2054818
It can be formatted with FAT32. When you receive the drive it's pre formatted with either NTFS or exFAT (Don't remember but it's one of the two). That being said the Windows format tool will not format any drive larger 32GB with FAT32. It will only allow you to use NTFS or exFAT. Third party tools can be used to format drives larger than 32GB with FAT32. Google "FAT32 Format by Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd." This tool works, is free and is very simply. Or you can use Windows diskpart to manually create the partition and format FAT32. I have this drive and have it formatted with FAT32 for use in my car to play MP3's. Also, please note that the behavior above is not specific to any particular manufacturer. It applies to any USB/HDD/SSD drive larger than 32GB being formatted in Windows.
1168896
Likely it is FAT32, or maybe NTFS. Go here, and just format to FAT. http://download.cnet.com/USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool/3000-2094_4-75984825.html Use caution you are formatting the correct drive letter, or you may have disastrous results, by accidentally formatting an external drive, or SD Card.
298147
With the built in utilities on Windows or Mac, you can easily format this drive to whatever you like. OS X for Mac or NTFS for Windows. Unfortunately, those can only be read by their respective operating systems. If I remember correctly, FAT32 can be read by either O/S, but it has some limitations like 4GB maximum file sizes. There is a driver by Paragon (I think it costs $20 if you want to do it legally) that allows Mac to read your NTFS drives or vice versa. This would be another option if you need your drive to operate with both O/Ss. BTW, all drives have this limitation, and all drives can be formatted. As they love to charge more for MAC stuff (presumably because MAC people think they are cool, sometimes are ignorant, but don't care about cost), I would always recommend buying a PC drive and reformatting it to MAC if necessary.
1614387
Video How To: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-O_9VrCw-o NTFS - Windows Exclusive Format MS-DOS (FAT) or FAT32 = Windows or Mac or Linux (NOTE: FAT format does not allow moving files larger than 4GB) You can also format it in about 3 different "mac exclusive" formats, if you will only use it on a mac.
534113
Yes it is formatted in Fat 32 but you can reformat to exFAT or NTFS if you would like.
2065456
I wouldn't be suprised if some external hard drives use the NTFS system instead of the FAT32. It's easy to reformat it though.
710861
The drive can only be formatted in FAT32, so the size of the file determines if it can be stored on the drive. If you are looking at files over 4Gb, it wont work.
361574
Yes it does. It will come formatted with FAT32, so you will have to change it to NTFS, but it is possible.
1137406
It came formatted in FAT32, I reformatted it to NTFS as I use large image files on it and can not use FAT32 due to the file size limitation of 4GB for a single file.
214659
Everyone is wrong to a degree. OS X can READ NTFS, it can't write to it, at least not natively. FAT32 is not really suitable for backups, so I wouldn't do that. Your two options are to either partition off the drive to have an NTFS partition and an HFS+ partition (Windows and Mac respectively), or you could make it NTFS and then download MacFUSE and NTFS-3G (google it) which will give the Mac the ability to write to windows drives (Abiet, very very slowly).
489005
It comes formatted in ExFat so you can use files greater than 4GB out of the box. You can format it to NTFS if you like or have devices that aren't compatible with ExFat.
302861
I think you mean NTFS, and yes.. Go to computer management - Disk Management - then format the disk to your needs
1185050
Recently I added a drive with data to mine. and I was able to restore the data, Back it up and format the drive for a new use. it worked well. I was using windows 7, I am not sure of the format I believe it was NTFS.
796105
Yes, but it has to be formatted to exFAT if you want the files to be over 4gbs. (NTFS also for Windows)
1819096
Both NTFS and Fat 32 formatted discs or USB sticks are supported. Cheers! Marty G