NTFS to FAT32

Ok, I have a 250 gig hdd with 3 80 gig partitions on it. I need to format the entire thing to FAT32 in order to be able to use my new macbook to write onto the hdd. I know that it's not possible to convert to FAT32 without losing my data, but is it possible for me to move all of my stuff off of each partition and format each one at a time?

Yes, as long as you are not changing the size of the partitions from their current state, you can format them without losing everything else on the drive

What program would you recommend to do this? and also, I thought that OSX couldnt format a partition larger than 32GB? Each partition is 77GB each, will it work?

Disk Utility will do it. I have formatted 80 GB external drives with it.

I have formatted 500gb drives with it. I don't think mac osx has a limit any more, I think back in the old days it was more the hardware that limited the drive not the os.

killawattz said:

What program would you recommend to do this? and also, I thought that OSX couldnt format a partition larger than 32GB? Each partition is 77GB each, will it work?

Click to expand...

Sure it will. Where on earth did you hear this from anyway?

You are confusing OSX with Windows XP. It's XP's formatter that will not format FAT32 Partitions larger than 32GB. Windows 2k's formatter has the same issues. OSX does not have that issue at all.

Oooh, ok, I guess that's why I'm having trouble. I have been using Norton Partition Magic to try to convert one of my 80GB partitions to FAT32, and it ran into an error, but now Partition Magic says that the partition is FAT32, and Windows says that it's still NTFS. Should I use Partition Magic to convert it back to NTFS and then use my Mac to partition it to FAT32?