rangerBlog - August 5th, 2007

11:00 am - Formatting a disk

I have a very simple problem- one of my external hard drives is NTFS, but I need to use it on macs too, and NTFS is read-only on macs. I've used flash drives to dodge this in the past, but it seemed like I should get this sucker FAT formatted.

Attempt #1: Mount disk under XP, right-click 'Format'
...odd, it only lets me choose NTFS, no matter what I do. XP has let me format smaller flash drives as non-NTFS without trouble. (Well, without much trouble...) I remember reading somewhere that FAT is, theoretically, supposed to be used for smaller drives. (This one is 120gb.) perhaps thats why it's blocking me.

Attempt #2: Mount disk under Mac OS X, attempt to format
The disk comes up as completely read-only. No formatting option is even available.
This troubles me, what if I'd been a mac user who'd purchased this disk? I am momentarily re-captured by my macadvocate zeal of days gone by, and shake my fist in impotent fury at etc etc etc.

Well, XP is no good, neither is Mac OS. ...what am I going to do? I cleared the damn disk off last night for the first time since I got it 9 months ago. It was a real pain to do, and if I don't format it now I won't get another chance for another 9 months!

*googles* 'format disk fat'

Bah, lots of ultra-specific instructions about how to set up partitions, boot disks, and Windows installs! Nothing as simple as how to format a disk-- because it's just supposed to fucking work when you right-click on Format! Hate hate hate!

*broods, continues to click through google returns*

Ooh, what's this? How to format a-- ah, heh heh heh Newbie instructions on how to format a 1.4mb floppy! This page is from 1996. Oh, that takes me back, checking that the write tab is clicked... then running some arcane... command...
...

Attempt #3: DOS prompt
It takes about six attempts, fumbling through HELP FORMAT to get the command right. But in the end, the disk chirps its merry way through a format cycle.

And all I can think is-- seriously? DOS? Fucking DOS? What the hell is wrong with the world that I need to go back to $%^&*() DOS to format one stupid disk? Were this an Ayn Rand novel, I would now be hacking and slewing aimlessly in an attempt to kill every living person on Earth for being complicit in such ungodly stupidity. Fortunately- real life is not like Ayn Rand novels.

(I shall doubtless have someone reply and tell me why formatting this FAT32 is a bad idea and it should be FAT16 or something, forcing me to go through another hour-long formatting session. Again, hacking an slewing is the natural response.)

::UPDATE::
Annnd... after the hour-long disk verification, it still didn't work. Why? Because Windows, even on the command prompt, refuses to format drives over 32gb as FAT32. A technical flaw in the format? No, it can mount Fat32 drives over 32gb. A problem with the legacy code? This is the command prompt, after all.
Not that either. Older versions of windows can format FAT32 drives over 32gb. (They often need a special driver to deal with drives of that, relatively, colossal size, but they do it quite politely.)

That baffles me. It's like Windows went out of their way to try and force you to format any hardware attached to their machines with their NT-based format that doesn't work and play well with other makers hardware.
And even if it's not a sinister plot... seriously, it's a goddamn format command. The Fat32 format supports hard drives above 32gb, and it's significantly more useful in that format. I should be able to use the damn system formatter to format the drive in a format it supports at a size older versions of Windows would let me do.

I'm reconsidering my ban on acting like like was an Ayn Rand novel. There should be blood, preferably spurting from an open source.

Attempt #3: fat32format utility
Ridgecrop Consultant LTD (which is probably a fancy name for one guy) has a utility for this. You run it from the command line. The syntax is simpler than the windows format command. It's faster by a factor of about... 700. And it worked on the first try.

Plus, free. They are awesome.

(Fucking Windows...)