[HELP!] Format a 3TB External HDD to FAT32

Hello Trusty Seven Forum!

It seems whenever I have a computer issue I come here and the great members always help me. Well, here I am again..

I just bought a 3TB external HDD to store all my music and movies so I can view and use them on my PS3. Long story short I have been searching for a good deal on a HDD forever and I finally found one. In that time (~6 months) I did as much research as I could and felt comfortable that I'd have no problem formatting it to FAT32 so my PS3 could recognize it.

It seemed the most popular and easiest way was to use Swiss Knife. So, I downloaded SK...and it wouldn't work (isn't compatible w/ W7 apparently) and then every other program I've tried hasn't worked either.

I'm not very computer literate, though, I'm not a complete noob either (at least I don't think I am ) Can someone please help me or point me in the right direction to get this thing formatted correctly??

Thank you in advance!!

Golden said:

Mike : I stumbled across this possibly solution using Ubuntu, but I've never used it.

Windows FAT32 Partition Size Limitation Workaround « TechSavvyComputing

Thanks, Golden. I heard that running an Ubuntu "Live CD" and formatting in Linux would be easy as pie. I was saving that as a last ditch effort because I know nothing about Linux.

Thanks for the reply

jumanji said:

Upto 2TB, you can use fat32format Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd . You may perhaps create another 1 TB partition and repeat the format. Try it. ( You may perhaps be able to merge the two partitons with some partitioning software later if you want one single 3TB partition.)

EDIT: I understand that PS3 does not recognise HDDs larger than 2TB and many went in for only 2TB HDDs to play safe. Just check the PS3 forums anyway. How to format an External Hard drive to Fat32 if it is larger than 30GB - Page 2 - PS3Hax Network - Playstation 3 Hacks and Mods

I tried fat23format for the entire 3TB and I kept getting errors 5 seconds in. I'm going to try formatting 2TB and see if it works.

I don't know how I missed that the PS3 won't read drives over 2TB?? Oh well, I got the 3TB for a really good price so I can't complain.

I'm going to try again and I'll report back how it went.

Thanks for the help, guys!

Ok, now I have a new problem. I used fat32format and made a partition of 2TB. The program gave me numerous errors messages, but my drive is now split. One is 2TB, the other the remaining GB's. Windows wouldn't let me do anything to the drive until I formatted it back to NTSF. So now I have 2 different NTSF drives.

I've very lost here and I think I bit off more than I can chew. Once a drive is FAT32 can I not add anything to it using Windows? How am I supposed to get all my files onto the FAT32 partition?

Friendly bump. Can anyone help me please??

Golden,

My issue is getting windows to see my fat32 partition so I can add media to the drive. Right now it keeps telling me I have to format (NTFS) the drive to use it.

When using fat32format, select the largest allocation unit size 65536 and check whether you are able to format the full 3TB to FAT32. Atleast one user in another forum seems to have done it and succeeded. ( Since you have no data on your external drive, you can try anything.:)) And whether your PS3 will be able to see the 3TB is a different issue.