Let's face it. Despite how far we have come in the evolution of file systems, such as NTFS, ext4, and HFS+, one thing's for certain, nothing seems to beat the old-school FAT32 file system for high interoperability between major operating systems with read-and-write capability (and a master file allocation table that doesn't trash itself as easily as the newer exFAT can).

Dec 7, 2018 - EaseUS Partition Master Free is an effective hard drive format tool which can. Such as manage Firmware partition as VMware disk manager.

The unfortunate reality we all face is that, due to odd licensing arrangements and a thing I like to call 'OS Nationalism,' most file systems tend to be built only for the operating system they were intended to run with and have either limited or no support on competing platforms. For instance, a drive formatted as NTFS for Windows is not write-capable on Mac OS X without some additional third-party drivers.

However, should you trust a third-party tool with your data if you were unsure about it? And even if you were okay with such additional software, this won't exactly save you should you take your drive on the go and plug it into a shared machine without administrative privileges and aforementioned drivers.

Beyond 32GB

Despite FAT32's shortcomings in terms of maximum file size limits, lack of ACLs, and disk quotas support, it's good enough for basic sneaker-net type activities between operating systems. Unfortunately, when the user wants to prepare a drive for use in this fashion, there is one major problem: Windows cannot format drives and partitions larger than 32GB in FAT32.

You may even consider making a partition sized at 32GB initially and then resizing it to fill the rest of the empty space. But within Windows, using the basic storage tools to resize operations is not supported on file systems other than NTFS. The only solution that I have been able to find for this 32GB limit problem is a utility called FAT32 Format by Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd.

On first glance, FAT32 Format (the GUI version of the fat32format tool shown in Figure A) looks very similar to the normal format tool built into Windows. Just download this utility, run it, pick a drive or partition you wish to format, and presto! There isn't much else to it.

Figure A

This is the GUI version of the fat32format tool.

FAT32 Format does require administrator privileges in order to mess around with any of your drives. Also, since FAT32 Format does not perform disk integrity checks on any newly formatted FAT32 spaces, it is advised to run the command 'chkdsk /R x:' after the format, replacing 'x:' with the appropriate drive letter in question. This process will take some time to complete, of course, so you might want to pop a cold one while you wait.

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Can I find or download a free hard drive format tool?

Is it possible for me to find or download a free hard drive format tool? I'm recently considering to clean one of my hard drives in my computer to store all my precious movies and videos there. This will be very helpful for saving more available space on my computer. For now, the whole hard drive is almost full, and I don't how to format it.

I mean I don't know any secure and effective way to format a hard drive in my computer. Some friends suggested me not format the hard drive for the reason that formatting a hard drive may take a long time and it's not a good way to protect computer data. Any false operation may cause worse result by formatting computer hard drive directly. That's why I need to find a free hard drive format tool. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thank you.

Download free hard drive format tool to format hard drive

You may wonder how to find and download such a free hard drive format tool and use it to format computer hard drive? EaseUS software provides a useful hard drive format tool - EaseUS Partition Master to assist you in solving hard drive format troubles and even more complex troubles such as manage Firmware partition as VMware disk manager.

If you only need to format a hard drive securely, the free partition manager - EaseUS Partition Master Free can be your best choice. It can be downloaded for free and you can follow the next steps to start formatting your hard drive now!

Format Hard Drive with EaseUS Partition Master

EaseUS Partition Master Free supports to format hard drive in computers without any technical skill. No obstacles nor troubles will happen. This software even supports to migrate OS to HDD/SSD under any Windows OS. Click the download button and install EaseUS Partition Master Free on your computer and start formatting hard drive now:

Note: If you have important data saved in the hard drive, back up or move data into a different and secure storage device first.

Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the hard drive partition you intend to format and choose 'Format'.

Step 2: In the new window, set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and Cluster size for the partition to be formatted, then click 'OK'.

Step 3: Then you will see a warning window, click 'OK' in it to continue.

Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting the partition on your hard drive.

To format a hard drive safely is no longer a complex task with the help of Ease Partition Master Free. Do not hesitate anymore and let this tool help solve more partition troubles now.