I am having serious problems trying to format my new 4Tb portable Seagate hard drive to Fat32 or exfat with a Master Boot Record Scheme. I have tried on my mac using disk utility, however, when partitioning almost all options are grayed out. I tried using windows, and have run into similar issues, and most of the time can only format to NTFS. I have gone through customer support for Apple and for Windows and neither could help me. The apple tech support said that if I used an old version of Disk Utility before they changed it, then I could solve my problem. Does anyone know how to do this?
Formatting my 4tb portable HD as Fat32
- Thread starter LuukeAtMe
- Start date
Solution
Hey there again, @LuukeAtMe!
I'm afraid that you will be limited to the 2 TB capacity max, since you need the HDD to be configured with the MBR partition table.
One way to avoid wasting the other 2 TB of the capacity would be to get a smaller (2 TB) external drive and use it on all these computers & devices and re-initialize the 4 TB external in GPT and NTFS/HFS+ and use it for backup of all the files from the PS4 to the Mac and Windows computers. Having multiple copies of your most precious files is the surest way to avoid any potential data loss. This is going to put the 4 TB external HDD to good use and not waste the storage capacity.
Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD
I'm afraid that you will be limited to the 2 TB capacity max, since you need the HDD to be configured with the MBR partition table.
One way to avoid wasting the other 2 TB of the capacity would be to get a smaller (2 TB) external drive and use it on all these computers & devices and re-initialize the 4 TB external in GPT and NTFS/HFS+ and use it for backup of all the files from the PS4 to the Mac and Windows computers. Having multiple copies of your most precious files is the surest way to avoid any potential data loss. This is going to put the 4 TB external HDD to good use and not waste the storage capacity. Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD
SuperSoph_WD
Glorious
- Jul 30, 2014
- 6,758
- 3
- 45,960
Hey there, @LuukeAtMe!
Unfortunately, you need to be aware of some File & Partition size limitations that come with the FAT32 file system first! You need to initialize the external drive with GPT (GUID partition table) instead of MBR (Master Boot Record), in order to be able to use the full 4 TB capacity. FAT32 file system restricts you to a 2 TB volume size, so you can try making two 2 TB partitions, yet again, I'm not sure if it will work.
I'd recommend you consider using the NTFS file system (However, you will need to re-initialize the disk as GPT first). You should still be able to read the data off the external on the Mac OS computer and depending on the X OS version, you can even write to it. Keep in mind that you won't be able to transfer files larger than 4 GB between the Mac and the PC.
Hope this helps you! Let me know if you have more questions.
SuperSoph_WD
Unfortunately, you need to be aware of some File & Partition size limitations that come with the FAT32 file system first! You need to initialize the external drive with GPT (GUID partition table) instead of MBR (Master Boot Record), in order to be able to use the full 4 TB capacity. FAT32 file system restricts you to a 2 TB volume size, so you can try making two 2 TB partitions, yet again, I'm not sure if it will work.
I'd recommend you consider using the NTFS file system (However, you will need to re-initialize the disk as GPT first). You should still be able to read the data off the external on the Mac OS computer and depending on the X OS version, you can even write to it. Keep in mind that you won't be able to transfer files larger than 4 GB between the Mac and the PC.
Hope this helps you! Let me know if you have more questions.
SuperSoph_WD
Yes, I know about the limitations, thats what I've been having problems with, but I was hoping someone knew of a way to get the two 2Tb partitions as you were talking about. It just seems that it might not be possible. The reason I want it MBR is because I want my PS4 to be able to read it as well as my mac, and windows.
SuperSoph_WD
Glorious
- Jul 30, 2014
- 6,758
- 3
- 45,960
Hey there again, @LuukeAtMe!
I'm afraid that you will be limited to the 2 TB capacity max, since you need the HDD to be configured with the MBR partition table. One way to avoid wasting the other 2 TB of the capacity would be to get a smaller (2 TB) external drive and use it on all these computers & devices and re-initialize the 4 TB external in GPT and NTFS/HFS+ and use it for backup of all the files from the PS4 to the Mac and Windows computers. Having multiple copies of your most precious files is the surest way to avoid any potential data loss. This is going to put the 4 TB external HDD to good use and not waste the storage capacity.
Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD
I'm afraid that you will be limited to the 2 TB capacity max, since you need the HDD to be configured with the MBR partition table.
One way to avoid wasting the other 2 TB of the capacity would be to get a smaller (2 TB) external drive and use it on all these computers & devices and re-initialize the 4 TB external in GPT and NTFS/HFS+ and use it for backup of all the files from the PS4 to the Mac and Windows computers. Having multiple copies of your most precious files is the surest way to avoid any potential data loss. This is going to put the 4 TB external HDD to good use and not waste the storage capacity. Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD
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