Format my 6TB My Book Studio Edition II to FAT32

I just recently bought my 6TB My Book Studio Edittion II WD Hard Drive. I am wanting to format all 6TB to FAT32 so I am able to use it on my Playstation 3, along with my Mac and PC. I have tried formating the drive with WD Drive Manager on my Mac. However when I format it to FAT32 using WD Drive Manager on my Mac it only formats about 2TB. It tells me I have like 1.7TB free. When it says 6TB free if it’s formated to HFS+. Can someone please help me. I have tried many free format programs on the web for both Mac and PC, however they only allow up to 2TB to format to FAT32. Please please please help.

Thank you!

-Chad

I think FAT32 has a max partition limit it did for XP. It does have a max file size of 4 gig. maybe you need a third party tool like Easuse partition Manager http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

Joe

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I just downloaded and installed the program you suggested. The publisher’s description for the program says only 4TB disk supported. I tried anyway in the program and it says the disk is unsupported. I also tried creating two volumes one with about 3.9TB and the other with the rest of the 6TB. Still says the disk is unsupported. I do appreciate your help a lot. I have read on other sites that you are able to format like up to 16TB to FAT32 (never have seen it done, they just said that was the max limit ever possible), of course not very sufficient but there should be a way to at least try to get my 6TB to FAT32.

-Chad

In theory, FAT32 should allow for drive sizes of up to 8 TiB with 32 KiB clusters, however, the 3 TB Hard Disk Drives inside your WD My Book Studio Edition II have 4k sectors, making a FAT32 partition over 2 TiB unlikely unless you can manually adjust the cluster size per disk on each drive at a time to keep the RAID configuration.

Thread moved to WD External Drives : External Drives for Mac.

Regards,

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Thank you for responding, moving this post to the appropriate place, and trying to help. I’m not extremely computer/hard drive knowledge savvy. Is there a way for me to manually adjust the cluster size per disk on each drive at a time to keep the RAID configuration? And if so do you think there is an easy way for a not so intelligent person (me) to do this? Also do you recommend doing this? I would definitely put the time into doing this if the hard drive will still work properly and I can get it to work on my PS3. Also would there be a way to revert back to factory “default” (the way the drive was when I bought it)?

Please and thank you for all and any help provided.

-Chad

 FAT32’s file system has a max limitation of 2.17 TB’s because it’s 32 bit.  You will need to make multiple partitions to use it on your PS3.

My reply also goes with what you said on the post that I found in my email but not here on the forum Wayne:

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-“What partitioning scheme are you using?  The partitioning scheme is what causes the limitation for how large a partition you can format.  MBR (Master Boot Record), itself, will only partition up to 2 TB’s max in size.  XP will only partition, or read partitions in MBR.  Therefore, you will only be able to partition up to 2TB’s in size.”

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I have tried partitioning scheme GUID using a MAC using Disk Utilities to format the hard drive. The only 3 options are:

  • GUID Partition Table: to use the disk to start up an Intel-based Mac, or to use the disk as a non-startup disk with any Mac with Mac OS X version 10.4 or later.
  • Apple Partition Map: to use the disk to start up a PowerPC-based Mac, or to use the disk as a non-startup disk with any Mac.
  • Master Boot Record: to use the disk to start up DOS and Windows computers, or to use with devices that require a DOS-compatible or Windows-compatible partition.

The Master Boot Record option is shadowed out and I am unable to select this option. My guess is because my hard drive is more than 2.17TB?

When choosing GUID with only 1 partition and the format MS-DOS (FAT) it comes out giving me 2TB (PS3 doesn’t read). When I choose GUID  3 partition and the format MS-DOS (FAT), because it splits each partition to a a 2TB size and it will fit in the max limit of 2.17TB, my Mac recognizes it as 3 hard drives of 2TB each… reasonable. When plugged into PS3 I still don’t see the drive… or 3 drives of 2TB each? Also even if I change the partitions so that each partition is below the 2.17TB the MBR option still remains shaded.

I have also tried the Apple Partition Map option and the results are the same as GUID.

Should I try making it the 3 partitions in Mac Disk Utilities and use another program to actually format to all 3 to FAT32 from the what would now be DS-DOS (FAT)? I’m not sure if there is a difference between the DS-DOS (FAT) and FAT32?

I hope this info helps you in helping me. Thank you for trying to help I truly appreciate everyones help.

-Chad

  Should I try making it the 3 partitions in Mac Disk Utilities and use another program to actually format to all 3 to FAT32 from the what would now be DS-DOS (FAT)? I’m not sure if there is a difference between the DS-DOS (FAT) and FAT32?

The real problem is MBR’s limitation.  It tends to choke when facing a drive > 2TB.  You could try to force it to partition and format the full drive with FAT32.  WD’s Acronis utility might do it.  But I wouldn’t do it.  The real things is that PS3 is looking for an MBR partition and that’s why it won’t read the GUID scheme of Mac or Windows 7.   I’ve heard of other users forcing a >2TB drive to partition only 2TB’s in MBR, and then partition and format the rest the same way.  But I have no idea if that will really work.

[edit]

By the way, MS-Dos (Fat) is MBR, and it will format in FAT 32.  You could try it.

I tried it and it doesn’t work. The PS3 will not read more than one partition I believe. I have a 2TB external hard drive as well. I was able to use fat32 formatter program to format the 2TB external hard drive to FAT32. However it wont read the 6TB because it is to big. And you are right about MBR. I am not able to do anything with my hard drive because it is 6TB and not under 2TB. I have tried WD’s Acronis and it doesn’t work either. I guess I will have to wait until either the PS3 changes or I find another way of formating this 6TB hard drive. Thank you for the help though.

-Chad

hey, you’re welcome.