# XP won't recognize exfat external hd



## mvirata (Sep 2, 2009)

Hello all,

I have a Windows XP 32bit with SP3 with up to date patches. When I try to access data from a Western Digital 250G external USB HD (which is formatted as exFAT) it says that it is not formatted and asks me to format it now. This same drive works fine when I attach it to a Win7 64bit workstation.

On the XP machine, I chose to format the drive using exFAT. I get the message "windows was unable to complete the format".

Now if I format the drive using NTFS I am OK. I even formatted the HD using exFAT on a Win7 64bit machine. When I place the HD back to the XP machine it sees the drive and the drive letter but keeps saying that it needs to be formatted.

In conclusion, the drive works on my Win7 both no matter what filesystem I use but in XP it only works as NTFS. I have no trouble seeing the drive or any drive letters. I even changed around the drive letters around from F to Z and I tried disabling the firewire connection (I read this on another site).

Normally I would just use NTFS and be done with it. However I wanted to use this drive to backup some things on my XBOX360 which does not recognize NTFS. Also (if im not mistaken) I wanted to attach this to a MAC and MAC won't recognize NTFS either but I believe it does recognize exFAT.

The HD is a little old but it does work fine. Any ideas?


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## ImWrecked (Dec 17, 2010)

If you don't have any files over 4Gb, I would use FAT32. I've actually had this exact same issue - what I did was partition the drive (160Gb) into 2 FAT32 partitions both formatted at 31Gb, then the rest of the disk space as NTFS. All three drives were recognized by both systems. Of course, the best way would be to purchase separate drives for each different file system you wish to use. Cheers.


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## mvirata (Sep 2, 2009)

hah, the strangest thing. I just worked around it. I no longer have a workstation that would allow me to format it to a FAT32 so that is one test I could not do. I decided to take my exFAT HD and backup some things from the xbox360 and lo and behold the 360 formatted the HD to Fat32. I can now access the data across all the machines I am using this drive for. 

For poops and giggles I have a state of the art 512mb USB flash drive (sarcasm) and I formatted it exfat. It seems my XP won't recognize anything exFAT. this isn't too much of a big deal since I worked around my issue but if anyone knows how to get exFAT working on an XP box, I would gladly like to know for troubleshooting sake.


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## mvirata (Sep 2, 2009)

MyDixieWrecked said:


> If you don't have any files over 4Gb, I would use FAT32. I've actually had this exact same issue - what I did was partition the drive (160Gb) into 2 FAT32 partitions both formatted at 31Gb, then the rest of the disk space as NTFS. All three drives were recognized by both systems. Of course, the best way would be to purchase separate drives for each different file system you wish to use. Cheers.


I posted my reply without seeing yours. The problem is I cant format to Fat32. It isn't even an option for me on any of my workstations (XP and 7). I believe since I am up to date the option isn't there. Luckily my 360 did the job for me. It is a strange workaround but it did work.


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## LMiller7 (Jun 21, 2010)

The issue is that XP doesn't directly support exFAT. Support for exFAT was introduced with Vista SP1 and is included with Windows 7. You can add support for exFAT in XP and Server 2003 by installing an update available here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=955704

XP will not format a volume over 32GB as FAT32 although some third party tools do support this.


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