FAT32 is only available in Windows 95 rev2 (OSR2), Windows 98, Windows 2000, and later versions of Windows. If you have Windows NT 4.0 or below, it does not support FAT32. To determine if your drives are running in FAT32 refer to the following instructions.

  • Open My Computer and highlight the drive in question.
  • Once highlighted, right-click the drive and select Properties.
  • If the File system indicates FAT32 instead of FAT, it’s enabled.

For any version of Windows that supports it, we highly recommend NTFS over FAT32 unless FAT32 is required by an older version of Windows.

  • How to determine the version of Windows on a computer.
  • Hard drive help and support.
  • See our FAT and FAT32 page for additional information about these terms.