external HD too large to format for Fat32 to use with PS3?

[Groo The Perverted]

I have an external Western Digital HD @ 500gigs.

I just spent like an hour formatting it (via the CMD prompt) to Fat32 and afterwards it says that it's too large.

How am I going to get this thing to be recognized on the PS3? I have movies/music I wanna put on there, and so far....nothing.

[Kinslayer]

haha u did the same thing I did..it took me like 2 hours but here's something really nice...with this you will be done in under 5 mins..format included. I am just restoring everything on my drive now.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm

[statikcat]

Fat32 does not work very well after so big a size. It is somewhere around over 120gb. You might want to partition it 3 times.

[prerich]

Originally Posted by Dreaming in Blu

I have an external Western Digital HD @ 500gigs.

I just spent like an hour formatting it (via the CMD prompt) to Fat32 and afterwards it says that it's too large.

How am I going to get this thing to be recognized on the PS3? I have movies/music I wanna put on there, and so far....nothing.

Within windows - fat32 has a limitation of 32GBs for a partition - You will have to make multiple partitions.

[Groo The Perverted]

I have no idea how to set up partitions though. I tried reading through that link that was posted but I'm not seeing some of the stuff I'm supposed to see.

The "make partition" button is not showing in the disk management thing.

**** it.....I'll just leave the music on my laptop.

32gb isn't even worth messing with and I don't feel like creating a buncha partitions just to put some music on a ps3.

Thanks to those who were giving suggestions though.

[JonD7]

Thats why i'm upgrading my HDD to a 320 next month...

[DeathByAsh'aman]

Im confused I got a WD 500gb external about a year before my ps3. Im assuming it was already formatted to fat32 because it worked flawlessly and that puppy has probably 2% of the drive left. So im not getting the "fat32 doest work very well after a certain size" Not saying anyone is wrong, just that i never experienced any problems.

@jond7- I have a 320 and its been great. except now i need the sammy 500gb

[Groo The Perverted]

Originally Posted by DeathByAsh'aman

Im confused I got a WD 500gb external about a year before my ps3. Im assuming it was already formatted to fat32 because it worked flawlessly and that puppy has probably 2% of the drive left. So im not getting the "fat32 doest work very well after a certain size" Not saying anyone is wrong, just that i never experienced any problems.

@jond7- I have a 320 and its been great. except now i need the sammy 500gb

I just tried to repartition the drive. I deleted the partition throught he disk management thing, and now it won't show up on my computer. I've rebooted, nothing. I've unplugged the external HD and plugged it back in, nothing.

I've switched it to another USB port. Nothing.

[richieb1971]

I'm not sure why you want both formats on the same disc. What possible benefit does it give you apart from needing a few aspirin?

[ThePhantomOak]

Originally Posted by prerich

Within windows - fat32 has a limitation of 32GBs for a partition - You will have to make multiple partitions.

I used my sisters MAC to reformat to Fat32 from NTFS so my PS3 could see my WD 500GB.

1 partition, about 15 minutes, and now my PS3 works fine with it. Another reason I HATE windows and Microsoft. It REALLY limits what you can do. I could not figure out a simple way of formatting to a Microsoft built format. Ridiculous.


My advice is find someone with a mac and do it that way...


You would want NTFS for files over 4Gb and Fat32 so your PS3 can see it...that is a good reason to do two partitions Why PS3 cannot read NTFS is a huge joke to me (all their computers use NTFS formatted HDD's, so why is PS3's drive some other format, and why cant it read NTFS???)

[Kinslayer]

Go to the link I gave you wow guys..instead of saying it won't work download that fat32 exe and it will work perfectly.formatted my 500 gb drive in under 5 mins.

[neckedness]

I am surprised no one is telling him to use SwissKnife. SwissKnife allows one partition of fat32 or ntfs up to 2048 GB.

Don't go the route of multiple partitions and all them steps. Just use SwissKnife, it works great for my 320GB drive for PS3.

[Bizdady]

I have a 250GB NTFS partition with 100 gigs free, whats the easiest way not to loose my data but partition 60gbs fat32? I want to backup my ps3 so i can swap out to a bigger hdd.

[neckedness]

Originally Posted by Bizdady

I have a 250GB NTFS partition with 100 gigs free, whats the easiest way not to loose my data but partition 60gbs fat32? I want to backup my ps3 so i can swap out to a bigger hdd.

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/pr...titioning.html
New! Split one partition into two and leave your data intact.

Or there maybe something out there that cost less or free.

[Groo The Perverted]

Originally Posted by Dreaming in Blu

I just tried to repartition the drive. I deleted the partition throught he disk management thing, and now it won't show up on my computer. I've rebooted, nothing. I've unplugged the external HD and plugged it back in, nothing.

I've switched it to another USB port. Nothing.

Anyone?

[Bizdady]

Originally Posted by Dreaming in Blu

Anyone?

It wont show in disk management anymore? thats odd.

[Proteus]

Best bet: Use a Macintosh to format it.

Second best: Use Swissknife to partition it.

FAT32 has no issues as long as the partition is under 2 terabytes. File size is limited to <4gb; however, which, if you are pirating HD movies, might be a little small (same if you are pirating 360 games). Otherwise, it's cool.

The reason PS3 doesn't do NTFS is because Microsoft wholly owns that format and requires licensing fees to use it... big ones. Likewise, Apples owns the HFS+ format that Mac's natively use (and, yes, it is a TON more reliable format than NTFS) which is proprietary as well. The big difference is Apple isn't total d**k's about it and fully support FAT32 formatting still. Microsoft is just trying to force people off of FAT32 so that they can monopolize and force people to license their crap NTFS format.

I have a Seagate 1Tb that I currently have 4 partitions on (room for a fifth too when I decide what it will be): Windows OS HD (NTFS) 80gb backup, NTFS storage volume 500gb backup, PS3 backup FAT32 320gb, Mac Powerbook back up HFS+ 20gb, and some space for another small backup... maybe my portable 80gb drive.. who knows. You can mix partition formats like a mofo and just go crazy like I did with a combination of Swissknife and the formatting tools in windows and mac, no problem.

[Groo The Perverted]

DANG! Swiss worked perfectly. It formatted it in like 10 seconds or less and boom, I have a 500 gig fat32 drive.

Thanks a lot!

[silversnake]

Originally Posted by neckedness

I am surprised no one is telling him to use SwissKnife. SwissKnife allows one partition of fat32 or ntfs up to 2048 GB.

Don't go the route of multiple partitions and all them steps. Just use SwissKnife, it works great for my 320GB drive for PS3.

thanks dude Going to try that.

[Kinslayer]

Guess u guys are too scared to download that Fat32 exe to format. Worked perfectly for me