Why does Recovery flash drive show wrong capacity?

[reflectionofpower]

I know this is not computer chess related but there are a lot of geeks on here.

I just made a recovery drive for Windows 8.1 Pro and the flash drive originally when I bought it this morning was a 64 GB. I look at it now and it is only a 32GB FAT32.

Is this a Microsoft thing for copy protection?

Any answers would be appreciated.

[Jimbo I]

I know this is not computer chess related but there are a lot of geeks on here.

I just made a recovery drive for Windows 8.1 Pro and the flash drive originally when I bought it this morning was a 64 GB. I look at it now and it is only a 32GB FAT32.

Is this a Microsoft thing for copy protection?

Any answers would be appreciated.

I don't know for sure, but I doubt that it's for copy protection. In general, Windows will refuse to format a flash drive in FAT32 if it's over 32 GB in size. I suspect that when the recovery disk was created, Windows just limited the partition to 32 GB.

As long as the flash drive isn't counterfeit, you should be able to reformat the flash drive to 64 GB when you no longer need the recovery drive. If you reformat the drive in Windows, you'd be restricted to NTFS or exFAT formats. Third-party software like "FAT32 Formatter" can also format the drive in FAT32 over 32 GB.

[reflectionofpower]

I know this is not computer chess related but there are a lot of geeks on here.

I just made a recovery drive for Windows 8.1 Pro and the flash drive originally when I bought it this morning was a 64 GB. I look at it now and it is only a 32GB FAT32.

Is this a Microsoft thing for copy protection?

Any answers would be appreciated.

I don't know for sure, but I doubt that it's for copy protection. In general, Windows will refuse to format a flash drive in FAT32 if it's over 32 GB in size. I suspect that when the recovery disk was created, Windows just limited the partition to 32 GB.

As long as the flash drive isn't counterfeit, you should be able to reformat the flash drive to 64 GB when you no longer need the recovery drive. If you reformat the drive in Windows, you'd be restricted to NTFS or exFAT formats. Third-party software like "FAT32 Formatter" can also format the drive in FAT32 over 32 GB.

File system limitation of FAT32. Ok, thanks, makes sense.

[Colin-G]

If you want to stay with the FAT32 format, you could split the drive into 2 partitions, each with 32GB.

[reflectionofpower]

If you want to stay with the FAT32 format, you could split the drive into 2 partitions, each with 32GB.

true.