how to format usb drive larger than 32gb to fat32

So it is nice to have a method of formatting these devices using a Fat32 partition. A Fat32 filesystem can be read across most operating systems and natively supports BIOS USB Boot. However, neither formats are detectable from all operating environments, nor are they BIOS bootable. Modern USB flash drives are manufactured with capacities that well exceed 32GB and they typically ship exFAT or NTFS formatted. This is due in part to the fact that the Windows format tool can only format a drive using the Fat32 if the drive is 32GB or smaller. Why is my only format option via the Windows format tool NTFS or exFAT? Linux users wont encounter this trouble, as the tools used there do not care what size the drive is.

In this case we need to format usb to fat32 using another utility or method. This is because those tools default to using NTFS or exFAT for bigger drives. When working from within a Windows environment, you will find it is not possible to use the default Windows tools to format larger than 32GB USB hard drives or flash drives with Fat32. How to Fat32 Format 32GB or Larger USB Flash Drives.

How to format usb drive larger than 32gb to fat32