Ubuntu
gparted package

Can't make fat32 partition

Asked by Mr.H

Hello,

I've got a problem with my Western Digital portable hd. (WD5000bmv)

Earlier today the disk was up and working in an ntfs file system. I decided to use the disk for exchanging files, so i wanted to put the file system in fat32. And there the problems began.

I tried the ubuntu disk utility, gparted (live) and via terminal. Usb ports are solid. The disk is detected.
I can make all the possible file systems in gparted but i can't make a fat32 or ntfs partition. In terminal everything goes as planned and the output says that everything went succesfull, but when i try to open it keeps saying 'the device is busy'

The output in Gparted says: "mkdosfs failed whilst writing fat32"
Output sudo fdisk -l :
Schijf /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 koppen, 63 sectoren/spoor, 60801 cilinders
Eenheid = cilinders van 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sectorgrootte (logischl/fysiek): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
in-/uitvoergrootte (minimaal/optimaal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Schijf-ID: 0x0004d2a1

 Apparaat Opstart Begin Einde Blokken ID Systeem
/dev/sdc1 1 60802 488385536 b W95 FAT32

What to do?

Thanks in advance

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Mr.H (pre-gain) said : 		#1

Update:
Now i can't make any file system anymore

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#2

Please restart your system... then using gparted delete the external disk existent partition then try to recreate it...

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Mr.H (pre-gain) said : 		#3

Did that 3 times...still doesn't work

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marcus aurelius (adbiz) said : 		#4

why were you trying to reformat an ntfs to fat32? ntfs is better than fat32.

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marcus aurelius (adbiz) said : 		#5

i don't remember for sure, but i don't think you can use fat32 on large capacity drives anyways.

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marcus aurelius (adbiz) said : 		#6

i don't remember for sure, but i don't think you can use fat32 on large capacity drives anyways.

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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32 Max file size 4GB (less than a DVD!) Max volume size depends of cluster size. If I remember well, most common is 2GB. I think as Marcus: NTFS should be better than FAT32, if all devices can manage NTFS.
When you try to format this external drive, did you check the partition is not mounted ?
If you still fails, you could try to rebuild partition table (choose MSDOS type).

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Mr.H (pre-gain) said : 		#8

If so why do i have a 500gb hd in fat32?

I want to use fat32 because Xbox doesn't recognize ntfs....

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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#9

"Max volume size depends of cluster size." So you have enough large cluster.
When you try to format this external drive, did you check the partition is not mounted ?

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