Random Hardware topics

[Colif]

Bios should recognise Exfat as well, mainly as USB drives getting bigger, and finding an 8gb one will one day be hard to do.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Bios should recognise Exfat as well, mainly as USB drives getting bigger, and finding an 8gb one will one day be hard to do.

It did not unfortunately, maybe just a Gigabyte problem or B550 problem. I tried multiple times.

 

[Colif]

Seems you are right, its NTFS now.

You can swap it to FAT32 in the formating screen.

I am sure I formatted a USB with BIOS on it in Windows 11, so it might be a recent change. I can't seem to find an answer to when it changed.

Seems it still needs to be FAT32 in BIOS, as I said already that needs to change soon

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

It was a brand new USB drive if that makes any difference. The drop down format menu in Windows listed ExFAT and NTFS and nothing else. But in the partition manager I was able to get FAT32 and then it saw it in BIOS.

Windows 11 Home build 22632 apparently. I just let it update when it asks as theres nothing mission critical for it to break here, and I'm really not fussy about OS stuff unless its actively making my PC crash or break.

 

[Colif]

its probably the size of the drive that made windows offer those 2, EXfat is for drives 32gb or over, as Fat32 is only 32bit and can only access so much space.

I am getting ram size mixed up now.. was USB 32gb or smaller?

Later I will find an 8gb drive and try format it.

I am on 22631, just to be different. Windows says I am up to date.

 

[Brian Boru]

Windows 11 no longer formats things to FAT32

HtG says it does:

How to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Windows 11 or Windows 10

Make it work with all your devices.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[Colif]

Even though article from July 23, it still seems accurate on my PC

that USB has a BIOS on it, and its name shows it was once a Windows installer itself.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

HtG says it does:

How to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Windows 11 or Windows 10

Make it work with all your devices.

www.howtogeek.com

Found a very old half GB stick and I get the option for FAT 32 there.

its probably the size of the drive that made windows offer those 2, EXfat is for drives 32gb or over, as Fat32 is only 32bit and can only access so much space.

Must be exactly that, because I just tried with an old 32GB drive and its there. With the 64 GB ones its not.

Muddled my way around it anyway

 

[Colif]

Windows don't format USB drives bigger than 32GB to fat32, to do that you need an alternative tool. This one can help you, but you can use another if you like

the horse's mouth

probably helps to save a few small ones around for BIOS. I don't know when it will change but it will need to.

 

[Brian Boru]

Must be exactly that, because I just tried with an old 32GB drive and its there. With the 64 GB ones its not

Yeah, the HtG article says:

"the built-in graphical formatting options on Windows only let you format your drives in FAT32 if they're 32 GB or less in storage capacity. (However, there's a command-line method and a third-party app to format drives larger than 32 GB in FAT32 format.)"

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Yeah, the HtG article says:

"the built-in graphical formatting options on Windows only let you format your drives in FAT32 if they're 32 GB or less in storage capacity. (However, there's a command-line method and a third-party app to format drives larger than 32 GB in FAT32 format.)"

Went straight to the third party app without reading the article.

Now I know, will probably only have this mobo another 2 or 3 years then it wont matter anyway.

 

[Colif]

I can't find any indication anywhere that the BIOS will change what it accepts any time soon.

So you new PC might have same problem, unless you don't intend to ever buy a PC again.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I can't find any indication anywhere that the BIOS will change what it accepts any time soon.

So you new PC might have same problem, unless you don't intend to ever buy a PC again.

To be fair it showed up my C drive and my other SATA SSD. Wonder if I culd have put the BIOS file on the root of one of those and read the BIOS file straight?

Didnt want to risk it because Ive always done it from USB before.

 

[Colif]

i don't know if BIOS sees an internal storage drive differently to USB. They both just drives to it, so might not be any reason to avoid using a storage drive inside PC. If anything, it might be safer as you can't remove it accidentally half way through a flash.
I have seen it mentioned as one place to put it in Bios manuals before - I read a lot finding answers for other people.

Lots of OEM PC do it from inside windows now, so it can't be that bad or they wouldn't release that into wild and mess up normies PC.

Seems my board supports it but there are reasons most of us don't use it...

The USB flash drive or hard drive must use FAT32/16/12 file system.

https://www.gigabyte.com/FileUpload/Global/MicroSite/121/flashbios_qflash.pdf

Only fat partitions on UEFI formated drives now are the boot partition, it won't help and isn't a suggested place to put any files... could end badly. Looks like recovery partitions are as well, but windows won't let you access those

I wonder why it says I have a partition 5 on a drive with only 4 partitions - last part unallocated... wonder if its counting the hidden drive for microsoft games... no, they on another drive unless it auto makes it on c... hmm
technically the 91.3gb is used by ssd for error correction but windows shouldn't be able to see it at all.
the OEM PC probably have a fat partition on them where driver updates are loaded. Would be my guess.