Top Three Ways for Pen Drive FAT32 Format in Windows 10/8/7

Why you need to format pen drive to FAT32?

Pen drives are more and more popular due to their nice properties and they are tiny and portable. Meanwhile, they are quite an investment. Their are several types pf pen drives-fancy, utility, on-the-go, security, flash drive and SDHC. Pen drives' storage capacity ranging from 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB to 256GB and more. You can choose a pen drive depends on your frequency of use. Many people stored data with pen drive. However, when you work with pen drive, you may meet many problems and you need to format pen drive to FAT32 to solve it, for example:

Some devices only support file system FAT32. FAT32 is one of the most compatible files systems for USB drives. If you need to use your pen drive on those FAT32 supported devices, a pen drive FAT32 format is the guarantee of compatibility with non-Windows operating systems. Cause when your pen drive formatted with FAT32 file system, you'll be able to read and write to the drive from those devices that support pen drives.

But how to format pen drive to FAT32?

How to format pen drive to FAT32?

Pen drive FAT32 format is necessary. And here provides you the top three ways for how to format pen drive to FAT32.

Note: format drive will erase all data on the drive, so you’d better back pen drive before using if you had stored some data important.

Pen drive to FAT32 format with Windows Disk Management

Windows users all know that Windows Disk Management can format USB flash drive to FAT32. To format pen drive to FAT32 with Windows Disk Management, you can follow the detailed steps below:

1. Open Disk Management: right clickThis PC/My Computer, select Management, and choose Disk Management.

2. You can see your pen drive here with NFTS file system. Then, right click it, select Format...in the list.

3. Then, choose FAT32 at the file system menu. Click OK.

Then, it will execute the task immediately.

USB flash drive FAT32 format using command prompt

As a Windows built-in tool, Diskpart can also support you format USB flash drive to FAT32 with command prompt. Follow the syntax to format pen drive to FAT32.

Click Start, or press Win+R, typecmd, right click the progress and select Run as Administrator:

1. Type diskpart, press Enter.

2. Type list volume. Mark the number of your pen drive.

3. Type select volume n ( n refers the number of your pen drive, here is 5). press Enter.

4. Type format fs=fat32 quick. Then, wait till the task finished.

5. finally, type exit to end the processing.

Both Windows Disk Management and Diskpart can format pen drive to FAT32 in a simple steps. However, it has a big limitation - You cannot format USB drive larger than 32GB to FAT32 with Windows built-in tool. If you pen drive larger than 32GB, the File System of Disk Management Format will only have “NTFS” option, so that you cannot format the large pen drive to FAT32, while if you use Diskpart format partition, the progressing will be failed.

Why? The FAT32 file system takes 32 bit file allocation table. It allows to be created up to 32GB volume, which means if there is a hard drive larger than 32GB, it can’t be formatted into FAT32. therefore, you may face another problem, if your pen drive is larger than 32GB, how could you format it to 32GB?

How to format pen drive larger than 32GB to FAT32?

Besides Windows built-in tool, taking use of the third party software AOMEI Partition Assistant is another best way for formatting USB drive to FAT32. The AOMEI Partition Assistant should be the best way for pen drive to FAT32 format. You can format USB drive larger than 32GB to FAT32 with AOMEI Partition Assistant easily. Here is the step-by-step guide to format pen drive larger than 32GB to FAT32 with AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Step1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. It will display you the basic situations of you hard drives. You can see your pen drive as “Removable”in the picture below. To format USB pen drive to FAT32, here you need to right click the pen drive, select Format Partition.

Step 2. It will pop out the format partition window where you can edit the partition label, choose file system and cluster size. ClickOK after all settings.

Step 3. Then, you will back to the main interface, don't forget to click Apply on the toolbar to submit the operations.

Step 4. Wait till the proceed done.

Using AOMEI Partition Assistant to format USB flash drive to FAT32 is such a simple thing. But what's the most impressing is this software allows you to convert NTFS to FAT32 without losing data.

Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Convert" and "Convert to NTFS/FAT 32" at the top pane.

You will get into the wizard of convert NTFS to FAT32 or convert FAT32 to NTFS. Select Convert NTFS to FAT32.

Select the pen drive which you want to convert to FAT32 below. Click Next.

Then, click Proceed to submit the operation.

Conclusion

Compared with the three ways of formatting pen drive to FAT32, using the AOMEI Partition Assistant to format has the absolutely advantages. It provides the simplest way for pen drive FAT32 format, and it provides you more advanced features, like convert NTFS to FAT32 without losing data and safely convert FAT32 to NTFS, solve the problem that the volume is too big for FAT32. Besides, AOMEI Partition Assistant is a great partition manager that you can use it to partition your hard drive in the best status flexible. Here to download AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard free to have a try.