Re: The pendrives cannot be formatted with fat32, why?

If the device has fewer than 65525 (yes, 65525) clusters, it *cannot*
be formatted FAT32. If it has 65526 or more clusters, it *must* be
formatted FAT32. And as a practical matter, you should avoid disk
sizes within +/-16 clusters of that boundary (since there are many
flawed implementations in the world). Assuming a few reserved sectors
and 512 bytes clusters, it's pretty much impossible to format a 32MB
device as FAT32. With 1KB clusters you're right on the edge with 64MB
devices. The common defaults use FAT16 for up to about 512MB devices,
with 8KB clusters, although those can typically be forced to use FAT32
by forcing a smaller cluster size during the format).

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Too large filesystem?
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    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • For Tumbleweed...
    ... 4K clusters all over it,faster PC would work.And when you constantly ... And about that command line format switch "a " option that God knows how ... format command there doesn't have "a" switch. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: The pendrives cannot be formatted with fat32, why?
    ... All FAT formatted volumes have clusters, ... > possibly use the number of clusters to decide which FAT format you'll ... setting up a file system. ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: Forcing a FAT16 format onto a 4MB FAT12 CompactFlash card
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    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: The pendrives cannot be formatted with fat32, why?
    ... All FAT formatted volumes have clusters, ... possibly use the number of clusters to decide which FAT format you'll ... setting up a file system. ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)