In windows 10, when you want to format a partition specifically as FAT32 (for example an SDcard that is going to be used in your phone) when you right-click the disk and choose format, only NTFS and exFAT are shown as possible format options.

Is there another way, preferably without installing an additional tool or booting into a different mode to format as FAT32?

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3 Answers

While LPChip's answer is 'correct' and should work in most cases unless the partition is over 32gb. I typically use a bit of third party software from ridgecrop that does the same thing but handles larger partitions. I've used their command line fat32formatter extensively over the past few years.

They have a GUI tool that more or less does what it says on the tin now. Formatting speeds are crazy fast and I've not had any issues with it.

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Yes, up to 32 gigs, as I found out later.

The GUI version of format is limited only to NTFS and exFAT, probably because this is what you'll ever need on Windows.

Luckily if you run format from the command prompt, you can specify far more options to format your disk in.

Format /? shows the following:

Formats a disk for use with Windows.
FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [/Q] [/L[:state]] [/A:size] [/C] [/I:state] [/X] [/P:passes] [/S:state]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/F:size] [/P:passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors] [/P:passes]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/P:passes]
FORMAT volume [/Q] volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name. /FS:filesystem Specifies the type of the file system (FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, UDF, ReFS). /V:label Specifies the volume label. /Q Performs a quick format. Note that this switch overrides /P. /C NTFS only: Files created on the new volume will be compressed by default. /X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would no longer be valid. /R:revision UDF only: Forces the format to a specific UDF version (1.02, 1.50, 2.00, 2.01, 2.50). The default revision is 2.01. /D UDF 2.50 only: Metadata will be duplicated. /L[:state] NTFS Only: Overrides the default size of file record. By default, a non-tiered volume will be formatted with small size file records and a tiered volume will be formatted with large size file records. /L and /L:enable forces format to use large size file records and /L:disable forces format to use small size file records. /A:size Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default settings are strongly recommended for general use. ReFS supports 64K. NTFS supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K. FAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, (128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes). FAT32 supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, (128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes). exFAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, 128K, 256K, 512K, 1M, 2M, 4M, 8M, 16M, 32M. Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the following restrictions on the number of clusters on a volume: FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526 FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 4177918 Format will immediately stop processing if it decides that the above requirements cannot be met using the specified cluster size. NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit sizes above 4096. /F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (1.44) /T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side. /N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track. /P:count Zero every sector on the volume. After that, the volume will be overwritten "count" times using a different random number each time. If "count" is zero, no additional overwrites are made after zeroing every sector. This switch is ignored when /Q is specified. /S:state Specifies support for short filenames (enable, disable) Short names are disabled by default /I:state ReFS only: Specifies whether integrity should be enabled on the new volume. "state" is either "enable" or "disable" Integrity is enabled on storage that supports data redundancy by default. /DAX[:state] NTFS Only: Enable direct access storage (DAX) mode for this volume. In DAX mode, the volume is accessed via the memory bus, boosting IO performance. A volume can be formatted with DAX mode only if the hardware is DAX capable. State can specify "enable" or "disable". /DAX is considered as /DAX:enable.

As you can see, /FS:filesystem allows you to format as

FAT (fat16), FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, UDF and ReFS.

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I just ran into this issue and found that the Disk Management tool built into Windows can handle this for partitions of 4GB or less.

Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions or search for Disk Management.

Right click on the volume and choose Shrink Volume..., then shrink it to 4GB or less. After that, both FAT32 and Quick Format options will be available in the Format... dialog.

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