"Volume too large to use FAT32, Windows 11/10 solution!"

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Written By

Linda 

Last Updated on May 13, 2024

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Why Do You Get the “The Volume Is Too Large for FAT32” Error?

FAT32 is a disk file management method that uses a 32-bit binary number for record keeping. It evolved from FAT and FAT16.

Its advantage is good stability, strong compatibility (full compatibility with Win 9X and earlier versions), and ease of maintenance. The disadvantage is poor security, support for a maximum partition size of only 32GB, and support for a maximum file size of only 4GB.

Despite the existence of more advanced file systems like NTFS and exFAT (Comparison between exFAT, FAT32 and NTFS), many USB flash drives larger than 32GB or specific device disks only support FAT32. Therefore, users may encounter "Volume is too big for FAT32" or "VDS error: Volume size is too large" when creating or formatting partitions to FAT32.

So, how to solve the problem that the FAT32 disk capacity is too large? Is there any other way to format a 64GB or 128GB USB drive or hard disk to FAT32? Here comes the detailed tutorial. Let's check it out.

## Solving the Problem of a FAT32 Volume Being Too Large with Command Prompt

If you try to create or format a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB using Windows Disk Management or File Explorer, you might notice that the FAT32 formatting option is unavailable. Thus, you can only choose NTFS or exFAT as the file system.

However, you can use the Diskpart utility in the Command Prompt to format a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB. Please check the steps below.

Note: You still cannot use CMD to format volumes larger than 1 TB as FAT32.

Step 1. Type cmd in the Windows 11/10 search box. Right-click on it and select Run as administrator.

Step 2: Type diskpart in the Command Prompt, and press "Enter."

Step 3: Enter the following commands one at a time, pressing “Enter” after each:

List disks
Select disk + disk number (e.g., select disk 2)
List partitions
Select partition + volume number (e.g., select partition 2)
Format fs=fat32

Another issue related to FAT32 would be “The file is too large for the destination file system” when you try to transfer a single file larger than 4GB to a FAT32 partition, which can be fixed by following the online guide.

## Format a drive larger than 32 GB as FAT32 with PowerShell

You can also use Windows PowerShell to format a USB or HDD larger than 32 GB to FAT32.

Step 1: Click on the Search button, and type PowerShell.

Step 2. Right-click on "Windows PowerShell," and select "Run as administrator."

Step 3: Type format /fs:fat32 o: and press Enter. Replace the "O" with the drive letter of your flash drive.

Step 4: Wait for the process to finish. When it's done, type exit.

Format Drive to FAT32 with Free FAT32 Formatter without Limitation

If Command Prompt also fails to format your large disk as FAT32 and says the volume is too big for FAT32, you can use a free FAT32 formatting tool.

Tool Partition Master Free is a powerful and reliable Windows 11/10 partition software that offers an all-in-one solution for disk partition management.

Download the tool Partition Master Free to format HDDs, USB flash drives, or external hard disks to FAT32 without limitations.

Step 1: Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click the partition which you want to format and choose "Format".

Step 2: In the new window, enter the partition label, select the FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 file system, set the cluster size as needed, and click “OK”.

Step 3: A warning window will appear. Click “Yes” to proceed.

Step 4. Click on the “Perform 1 Operation” button on the top left to review the changes, and then click “Apply” to start formatting the partition to FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4.

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Fix "The disk volume is too large to use FAT32" by converting NTFS to FAT32

There is no need to format a hard drive containing NTFS or other file system data to FAT32 – you can convert it to FAT32 without formatting.

A free partition manager software offers comprehensive partition conversion options. It can help you convert FAT32 to NTFS or NTFS to FAT32 without data loss, convert disk style from MBR to GPT or from GPT to MBR, convert dynamic disk to basic disk and vice versa, and more.

Please follow this guide to convert a USB drive larger than 32GB from NTFS to FAT32 without losing data.

Step 1. Right-click on the partition of the target device and select Advanced > Convert to FAT.

Step 2: Once the scan is completed, click on 'Start' to begin the conversion from NTFS to FAT32.

Step 3: Click "Apply" to save all changes.

Easily Fix the “Volume Too Large for FAT32” Error

You may receive “File too large for FAT32” or Virtual Disk Service error: The volume size is too large when trying to format a 64GB USB flash drive or a 128GB, 500GB hard disk.

There are several effective ways to format a large storage device to FAT32:

• Use the Diskpart tool in Command Prompt
• Utilize a free FAT32 formatting utility
• Convert NTFS to FAT32

Since the CMD solution might be a bit complicated for regular users, we strongly recommend trying out Partition Master Free, a GUI tool that can format a disk to FAT32 with ease. Alternatively, you can choose to convert NTFS to FAT32 without losing data.