Why you want to format external hard drive to FAT
32?
Scenario: I want to format a USB flash drive to FAT 32 as
that’s what my car infotainment system can read. However, Windows 10’s format
command only offers NTFS and exFAT. So, here is the question: how to format external
hard drive to FAT 32 on Windows 10?
Actually, different operating system supports different file system. If you have a
NTFS hard drive, you can only use it on an operating system like Windows 10/8/7. If
you plug the NTFS hard drive to a Mac, it won’t be recognized. FAT 32 is a file
system used wider than NTFS. Both Windows operating system and Mac operating system
would recognize it, and many game machines are using FAT 32 like PS3, PS4, Xbox,
Xbox 360, etc. If you want to use the external hard drive on those OSes, or if you
want to solve this kind of problem that PS3 cannot read NTFS USB drive,
you must format the external hard drive to FAT 32.
How to format external hard drive to FAT 32 on Windows 10?
People using Windows 8/7 can format external hard drive to FAT 32 with Disk
Management, or using Diskpart to
format USB and any other external hard drive. However, you will find
that Windows 10’s format command only offers NTFS and exFAT. Fortunately, here will
introduce you two ways to format external hard drive to FAT 32 on Windows 10.
Format external hard drive to FAT 32 by using DOS
Step1. Press “Win+R”, type “cmd” in the search
box. It will display you the command prompt.
Step2. Input the syntax “format /FS:FAT32 F:” at
the prompt. F is the drive letter of your external hard drive in your Windows 10.
Step3. Hit Enter, it
will run the task.
Format external hard drive to FAT 32 with a professional format
tool
AOMEI Partition Assistant is a
professional partition manager that can help you format external hard drive to FAT
32 on Windows 10/8/7 with a concise interface. You can use it to format external
hard drive including HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, SD card and any other removable
storage device to FAT 32 in s very simple way. Here you can see the detailed steps
for formatting external hard drive to FAT 32 on Windows 10 with AOMEI Partition
Assistant.
step1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer and
make sure it can be detected by Windows Explorer. Install and
launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. To format external hard drive, here you need to
select the external hard drive, right click it, select Format
Partition.

Step2.Here will pop out a window, select FAT 32 at the File System
menu. Click OK.

Step3. You will back to the main interface and you have already
format the external hard drive to FAT 32. Click Apply and it will
execute the task.

Tips:
● This operation will erase the data on the external hard drive. So you’d better
backup the data no the external hard drive before formatting.
● AOMEI Partition Assistant provides you convert NTFS to FAT 32 without losing
data.
AOMEI Partition Assistant is such a great powerful disk manager. Besides format
partition, you can also use it to initialize
disk, wipe hard drive, wipe partition, and many more.