How to Format an External Hard Drive to Fat

Step-by-Step Guide

1. 1

   Step 1: Check your external hard drive.

   Plug-in your external hard drive and verify that it is in working condition by clicking on the start menu button (located in the bottom left corner of your screen), then click 'Computer'
   
   and locate your external hard drive in the Computer window.
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   Step 2: Back-up your external hard drive.

   Back-up any data in the external hard drive that you wish to save.
   
   If you do not back up the data in your external hard drive now, it will all be deleted when you reformat the hard drive. , Click the start menu button (located in the bottom left corner of your screen).
   
   Then in the search bar, type 'Computer Management' and hit the 'Enter' key on your keyboard or click on the 'Computer Management' button. , In the left window pane of the Computer Management window, find and click on 'Disk Management'. , In the upper-middle window pane of the Computer Management window, locate and click on your external hard drive in the list of available disk volumes.
   
   Note that after clicking your external hard drive, it will be highlighted in the lower-middle window pane of the Computer management window by diagonal blue lines. , In the lower-middle window pane of the Computer Management window, right-click on your highlighted external hard drive and click 'Format'. , In the Format window, feel free to label your volume as you wish under 'Volume Label'.
   
   Then under 'File System'
   
   choose FAT32 (NOTE: if your external hard drive is larger than 32GB, choose exFAT). ,,, The warming prompt will remind you that the formatting process will delete all the data on your external hard drive.
   
   If you still need to back-up your data, click 'Cancel' on the warning prompt window and return to Step
   2.
   
   If not, click 'OK'.
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   Step 3: Opening Computer Management.

4. 4

   Step 4: Opening Disk Management.

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   Step 5: Find your external hard drive.

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   Step 6: Format your external hard drive.

7. 7

   Step 7: Format your external hard drive options.

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   Step 8: In the Format window

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   Step 9: keep 'Allocation unit size' set to default.

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    Step 10: Check that 'Perform a quick format' is turned on (optional) and click 'OK'.

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    Step 11: Warning prompt.

Detailed Guide

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