While the FAT32 file system can support drives up to a standard theoretical size of 2 terabytes, (it ‘can’ be jury-rigged under Windows Millennium Edition to support partitions of up to 8 TB). Windows 2000 Professional and XP Professional cannot FORMAT a volume larger than 32 GB in size using their native FAT32 file system.
The FastFAT driver can mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file system, such as those created locally by Windows 98 or ME in dual boot configuration, (subject to other limits listed here for Windows 98, ME and 2000 and here for Windows XP), but you cannot CREATE one using the Format tool from within either Windows 2000 Professional or XP Professional. If you attempt to format a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB, the format fails near the end of the process with the following error message:
Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big.
MC MCSE: Windows XP Professional File Systems Overview
This behavior is by design, as Microsoft recommends using the NTFS file system for partitions greater than 32GB. One reason for this is: as a FAT32 partition goes beyond 32GB, the cluster size that is used jumps from 16K to 32K, thus “wasting” much more drive space. (See the FAT16 page for more about wasted cluster space.)
However, as Windows 2000 or Windows XP fully supports using a FAT32 partition over 32GB, and only does not permit formatting a FAT drive over 32GB, it may be possible to use a Windows 98 boot diskette to get a larger FAT partition formatted. Just be extremely careful that the correct partition is formatted when booting from a diskette.