I currently have a 3 HDD setup as follows:

80 gig IDE formatted NTFS with XP Pro
200 gig SATA formatted NTFS for backups and games/music/etc
120 gig IDE with a 10 gig ext3 partition with debian
- the rest of the 120 gig is unformatted/partitioned

I wanted to format the rest of the 120 gig as FAT32 so it can be shared between XP and Debian, but XP only gives the option to format it as NTFS. So I downloaded the DEMO for Partition Magic and it won't let me do it either... When I click "apply" it informs me that I am only running the demo and no changes are made.

So, are there easy to use windows based or linux based programs that will let me create FAT32 partitions. FYI I'm still a Linux newbie, so windows programs might decrease my chances of messing things up ,and a GUI is preffered.

Are there any programs out there like that?

Thanks for the help!

Hi jughead. Windows XP and Partition magic won't let u format the partition using fat32 because it's way too big for fat32 to handle(I think the maximum recomanded size for fat32 is abot 50gb or less), but it can still be done using fdisk from a windows me startup diskette. After making the desired partition u can format it using fat32 with the format utility on the diskette. Good Luck!!!

You should be able to use XP's disk management to create this, just make one smaller than 32GB then you should be able to format as FAT32, or use cfdisk from linux. Here's some info from M$ regarding FAT32......

"In theory, FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB. However, Windows XP Professional can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems."

Interesting...
I'll be buying a 200GB drive soon and have a follow up question.

Does this mean that windows XP is unable to read/write to FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB? Or does it just mean it is unable to FORMAT fat32 larger than 32 GB?

Would it be possible to format a 75 GB FAT 32 partition from linux and make it accessible using windows XP?

Thanks.

Does this mean that windows XP is unable to read/write to FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB?

No, reading & writing is fine.

Or does it just mean it is unable to FORMAT fat32 larger than 32 GB?

Yes.

Would it be possible to format a 75 GB FAT 32 partition from linux and make it accessible using windows XP?

Very (presuming Linux can format 75GB FAT32 partitions)

Thanks Xyem!