How to change format to fat32 - Seagate 500GB USB 20 5400RPM Portable 500 GB Hard Drive

It is very likely that your TV doesn't support files what you have on the stick. Can you access files on computer? If answer is yes then your stick is working. If that is the case check your TV manual for file types supported by TV and also for file system format for memory stick (FAT 16, FAT32 NTFS....?). You may have to change format of your USB stick or recover your files to format recognized by tv. For example tv may read pictures in *.jpg format but not in *.png.

In Windows, go to Computer, right click on the drive you want to format, click format and change file system to FAT32.

It seems that the "format" that you perform is corrupted.So try Hewlett-Packard's USB Disk Storage Format Tool

Go to My Computer, right click on the drive, go to format. select fat32 on the type list. Remember that this will delete all of the files on the Hard Drive.

Trying to format a large external USB or Firewire hard drive to the FAT32 file system? Can't do it? Only see an option for formatting the drive using the NTFS file format? Well if you answered yes any of those questions, then you're at the right place.
I was recently trying to format my 1 TB MyBook external hard drive in Windows XP to FAT32 instead of the overly forced-upon NTFS format. Why? Well because I needed to connect it to a NAS device and the NTFS permissions were causing the NAS not to be able to access the drive. Simple solution is to use FAT32, no security, no problems. Though it's sometimes useful to format a USB drive in NTFS format.
Also, formatting a drive in FAT or FAT32 will allow it to be read by other operating systems, such as Mac, Linux, and older versions of Windows such as Windows 98.
Unfortunately, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 will only format a removable drive in FAT32 if it's less than 32GB! Hmmm...that pretty much cuts out ALL modern external hard drives!
However, Windows can format a drive that is larger than 32GB in FAT32, but you have to use the DOS command prompt. However, if you have a drive that is 1TB or larger, you may still get an error saying "The volume is too big for FAT32".
In that case, you can use a free program called SwissKnife that will allow you to format an external hard drive that is up to 2TB in size. Let's go through both methods. In case you are having problems getting your external hard drive to show up in Windows, read my article on how to change the drive letter for an external drive in Windows.
Format external drive in FAT32 using DOSOpen a command window by going to Start, then Run and typing in CMD.

Now type in the following command at the prompt:

format /FS:FAT32 X:
Replace the letter X with the letter of your external hard drive in Windows. Windows will go ahead and begin formatting the drive in FAT32!

Format external hard drive in FAT32 using SwissKnifeSwissKnife is a nifty little program that is completely free and that you can use to format many types of external drives such as USB, Firewire, PCMIA, SATA and SCSI. You can also use it to create partitions on an external hard drive and it formats faster than Windows.

So next time you want to format a hard drive in FAT32 and Windows only gives you an option for NTFS, make sure to follow one of the two method mentioned above. Enjoy!

Open My Computer icon on the desktop. locate the hard disk you wish to format in FAT32. Make sure is not your main drive where windows was installed which is Drive C: Right click on the drive you want to format and select Format, a formatting window will pop out, there you see capacity which is the size of your hard drive,File system, and so on. Select the drop down menu under File system where we have NTFS and FAT32. Set it to FAT32. Under Format Options, Select Quick format and click Start. A warning message will pop out Click Ok to proceed. Wait a moment until the formatting is complete. Good luck.

You may need to change the partition map scheme. I imagine it is using the GUID partition and should be the Master Boot Record. The best way to do this is to select the drive in Disk Utility, then choose the Partition tab. Change the Current partition to one, click on the options button, choose Master Boot Record (MBR) then click OK. Then on the format drop-down menu change the format to Free Space, then click Apply and OK. Then the drive is ready to format with FAT32 that your PS3, etc. can recognize. To do this click on the Erase tab, choose FAT32 in the Format drop-down menu, name the drive, click apply and OK. The drive should now work cross-platform on Macs, PCs, and media devices. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

Gene Gilbert

if you want to change ntfs to fat32 you will have to take anything thats on the drive and go to format then you should be able to change it to fat32

Most probably the format of your hard drive is NTFS. Samsung DVD players only recognize FAT32 formats. If you have the patience and resources try to change the format of your hard drive to FAT32. Better yet since it is a 1TB try to create a partition one NTFS and one FAT32 because FAT32 cannot go beyond 4GB for files.

Hope this helps.

Is the D: drive removable media? If so, the media you have inserted has to have been formatted with fat32 rather than ntfs. It shouldn't matter... either should be able to be read. Changing from ntfs to fat32 requires a formatting of the drive... so the OS can't simply change it.