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formatting external drives to fat32 in W10 - Microsoft Community
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Why can you NOT format devices to FAT32 in windows 10? I mistakenly formatted a thumb drive to exFAT, making it unreadable in all my other devices. Then to top it off I had to download an HP program jut to reformat to FAT32. Why doesn't W10 have this
option?
Actually JohnSmith531 -- GMarose is correct. The option to format a drive in Windows 10 only gives you the exFAT and NTFS option in file Explorer with its drop down.
You can however still use command prompt to format in FAT32.
Right click your windows button and choose Command prompt or Command prompt(Admin)
Type the following at the prompt:
format /FS:FAT32 X:
Hit the enter button and answer the confirmation dialog with "Y" for yes or "N" for no.
This is a command for a long full format. If you want a Quick Format, you will have to use the appropriate switch if it is still available.
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