Scenario
“I want to format a hard drive to FAT32, but Windows 10 Disk Management tool failed
to do this job. And it only offers NTFS and exFAT. How can I format this drive as
FAT32? Is there any suggestion?”
Why cannot format hard drive into FAT32 in Windows 10?
Windows cannot format hard drive into FAT32? Why? Here you need to understand the
FAT32 file system at first. FAT32 is a kind of file system suitable for small
capacity hard disk. It designed to overcome the 2GB partition limit with the FAT
system. the maximum file size of a single file it supports is 4GB. If the partition
capacity of your hard drive, flash drive or SD card is larger than 32GB or the
maximum file size of a single file is larger than 4GB, you may encounter that
Windows built-in tool cannot format your drive to FAT32 successfully. Besides, if
your hard drive, flash drive or SD card is write protected, you cannot format it
successfully too.
Best free FAT32 formatter Windows 10
To format hard drive, flash drive, or SD card into FAT32, you can use Windows
built-in tool to do this operation. The specific steps are as follows:
1. Press “Windows” + “R” at the same time to open the Run box,
then type “diskmgmt.msc” and press “Enter” key to open the Disk Management.
2. Right click the drive you want to format and select
“Format”.
3. Then, select FAT32 file system (or the file system you need)
and click “OK” to start format.
If you meet the problem that Windows built-in tool cannot format your drive into
FAT32 successfully, you can turn to a third party software to do this operation.
Compare with other software, here I highly recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant – the best
free FAT32 formatter Windows 10 which provides you many powerful functions like
format partition. You can use it to format your hard drive, flash drive, SD card, as
well as other storage drive in Windows 10/8/7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.
How to format hard drive, flash drive, or SD card with AOMEI Partition
Assistant
To format hard drive, flash drive, SD card, as well as other storage drive in Windows
10/8/7 with AOMEI Partition Assistant can be very easy and effective. The specific
steps are as follows:
(If there is any important data on the hard drive, please back up the storage drive
at first.)
Step 1. Download, install and run
AOMEI Partition Assistant. Your partition information will be displayed on the main
interface. Right-click the drive you want to format and select “Format Partition”.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, choose the file system you need. (here
is “FAT32” file system.) And you can also specify “Cluster Size” under file system if you need to. Then, click “OK”.

Step 3. After that, it will go back to the main interface. Preview
the virtual result and click “Apply” > “Proceed” to complete the operation.

Notes:
The formatting process will take some time, please allow the computer to
finish this operation before using it for anything else.
Formatting doesn’t erase the data once and for all. But AOMEI Partition
Assistant Pro can be the best hard drive cleaning
software with the function of SSD Secure Erase.
If you need to store some big files larger than 4GB to the partition, we
suggest you to use NTFS to format due to the 4GB limitation of FAT32.
Conclusion
Follow these simple steps, you can format your storage drive into FAT32 or any other
file system in Windows computers easily and effectively. AOMEI Partition Assistant
can be the best free FAT32 formatter. The feature of format partition can also help
you to fix the error like current
read only state yes. Besides, it also provides you many other powerful
functions such as resize/move/delete partition, disk copy, migrate OS to SSD, wipe
hard drive and so on. If you meet the problem like c drive full in Windows
10/8/7, you can upgrade to AOMEI Partition
Assistant Professional to solve this problem.