Format 120GB Laptop Hard Drive with FAT32 or FAT16

Hi,
Why you TV would not recognise NTFS?
If you really need to format in FAT mode, then FAT32 not FAT16 !!

The reason you're not able to select FAT32 (definitely don't try FAT16) is that you have too large an amount selected for the size.  The largest FAT32 partition that Windows XP will create is 32GB.  I'm sure if you reduce the size of the partition you'll find you can format in FAT32 format.

yeah, i have the samsung ln-t3253 tv and the oppo hd 970 dvd player. both have usb ports and i believe both require fat32. i don't believe that either will support NTFS.

Maybe you should give it a try :-) It would be better to have a NTFS drive than FAT

the dvd player supports USB 1.1 Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport devices. supported drives must be formatted with the FAT file system. drives formatted with the NTFS file system are not supported

Arf ok :-(
Well then eaither try formating using less space or do as I told you use particion magic to format and allocate the proper space to your drive. Now I don't know the maximum size allowed for FAT32

i agree, i might try.
the tv does not have a divx decoder and only plays jpeg and mp3
the user manual says that this also does not support NTFS

so i guess i will need to cut the 120G drive up into 3 or 4 partitions of 32G+/- each in order to format into FAT32?

i didn't mean to be abrupt there dlan, i posted the info from the user guide before i saw your post

Not necessarely I think if you use Partition Magic it'll tell you how big your patition can be.
If you use punky's solution then as he said, if you activate the large size, you might be able to get more than 32 but not sure, to be tryed.

No worries ;-)

I have heard great things about Partition Magic but in some cases the "extension" of normal limits is done with some "software" that is on the drive.  I am mainly referring to other disk management programs I have used in the past so this may not be an issue with Partition Magic or other programs.  The TV would need to support this too.  Hopefully this isn't an issue but I wanted to caution against using some option to get full use of the drive with no partitions or big partitions with some "management" software.  I would hate for you to get the drive or big partitions and for the TV to not be able to "see" them.

bol

If you use windows XP boot disks (6 floppies I recalled), then you dont need break down the drive into multi partitions.

i don't think i have a way to connect this drive directly to the pc except via usb. anyone know of a free format utility? preferably one that will format the entire drive as one partition. I've been reading PAQs that mention a 127G limit.
Thanks again all.

i'm trying paragon partition manager trial at the moment. it looks promising.

Try this tool:

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

and use a 2.5" to 3.5" ide adaptor cable for connecting the drive to a pc :
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/cables-adapters/m/811539/

I found this tool created by a computer consultant in the UK - it should format the drive to full capacity by following his procedure and using his tool.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

HP makes a utility that allows the creation of a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB:

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

GParted ( http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ ) or any Linux box with the "parted" software installed will be able to set up your 120 GB drive in FAT 32.
/RID

SWEET!!!, the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools recognized the usb device and allowed me to delete the existing NTFS partition and create a single 120GB (111GB actual) FAT32 partition.
No worries. Thanks all.

I'm glad I could help.  Thanks for the grade, the points and the fun question.  I had completely missed the fact that you had the drive in an external enclosure.  I saw the tool but thought the drive was internal so didn't suggest it.  I'm glad Garycase didn't make the same mistake.  :)

bol

of course i still haven't checked to see if the DVD player will recognize the drive so some reservations above may still be valid

i just finished testing and everything worked out great as i describe above.
I also had to configure the OPPO for NTSC rather than Auto(NTSC/PAL) so that the Samsung TV would recognize the HDMI signal. It was recognizing the signal from the analog outputs but not the digital outputs.