WD Passport 320GB?? I want to format it and keep it as FAT32

I don't understand I have partition magic and I am trying to format the drive but it keeps telling me it needs to format it and change it to NTFS....


I have a Philips DVP5992 with USB 2.0 Support so I can just plug in my Passport and watch movies directly off of it....It needs to stay FAT32 for the data to read in my DVD Player...

so How do I format the Fat32 Passport and keep it a Fat32 without switching it to NTFS??

 

you might just possibly want to call WD's support on this issue as it is their product and hopefully they can help you. But then again it is strange that there isn't an option to format in FAT32. When I used to use partition magic that option was there but that was when I was using XP also. The newer version could have dropped that option.

 

The WD Passport is a FAT32 but I heard you should format your drives before doing anything to them...

I have a bunch of random files on my passport. I think it is the operating system for the passport or something.

 

I converted it to NTFS Because I formatted it now it won't let me convert it back to FAT32...How do I do so?

 

That can be a problem, one of my XP computers was FAT32 and I formatted it to NTFS and it would not revert back to FAT32 no matter what I tried. I don't knowwhere the article is now but Microsoft had a notice about the conversion from Fat32 and not being able to convert back after formating to NTFS

I found the article== http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php

 

One possible way around this problem which i've used in the past is to plug your external drive in then boot up a windows xp install cd. When you get to the install screen select your external drive, delete the partition then create a new one and do a fat32 format. Then simply reboot and you should have freshly formatted fat32 hard drive to use.

 

Has anyone tried Deleting the partition like farmerlee stated via a XP Install CD for a Passport for me it is wierd because I thought your supposed to format ANY Hard Drive when you get it so it runs clean...

I was able to format the drive in Partition Magic but it switched to NTFS and So I Closed Partition Magic and it asked me if I wanted to keep the changes and I said no....So I went to My Computer and right clicked my Passport drive to check it and it was still a FAT32.

 

Why partition magic? U can format it via Windows itself. Why bother for Partitio magic in this case?

 

Western Digital provides a formating utility for fat32.
External USB/FireWire Fat32 Formatting Utility

Another freeware product that can be used for formating partitions larger than 32gb in fat32 is FAT 32 Formatter.


hope it helps,
Panagiotis

 

WARNING: Do not think that the your WD Passport, using the WD Sync software, is a backup drive; it is NOT !

As per the documentation with this device:
"synchronization software is intended to synchronize the data from a computer to the drive (WD Passport) and SHOULD NOT be used as backup software. To use this software properly, we advise that you do not wipe or
erase the data from the internal hard drive (computer) and resynchronize, as this will cause the data that WD Sync stored to the Passport to be deleted."

This is why you are hearing so many people saying that they are deleting the WD Sync software, reformatting, and using the WC Passport as a true backup
drive where you can actually see the files that you are backing up, rather than a bunch of unrecognizable Sync files that likely don't have all the files that you thought you "backed up".