Re: How to save in FAT 32. not FAT 16
Reply #2 –
G'day Mell,
to expand on Rick's reply, FAT16/32 relates to the format of a "disk" device - it has nothing, directly, to do with how you save a file, but rather where.
So, as Rick said, to save a MIDI in FAT32 you need to save it to a FAT32 device. It is extremely unlikely you will even find a FAT16 device these days, unless it is a 2GB or smaller solid state device like a "thumb drive" or the like. Floppy disks are FAT12. If you're interested, FAT stands for File Allocation Table.
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Some waffle for those that are interested:
The other main drive format is NTFS (New Technology File System). First introduced in Windows NT, it is the default format for Win NT, Win2k, WinXP and now Vista - including the server versions. WinNT, Win2k and XP could all be installed on FAT32 instead of NTFS if you wanted to. Vista has controls in the installer to prevent installation to a FAT32 partition though this is an arbitrary decision on the part of microsoft - AFAIK there's no real reason vista couldn't run on a FAT32 partition.
OK, that said, FAT32 has a maximum volume size of 2 Terabytes, but microsoft have deliberately crippled their formatting software to prevent creating FAT32 partitions larger than 32 Gigabytes. This effectively makes it a poor choice for installing Windows to modern drives. Added to that, in the windows environment NTFS has some advantages in security and performance over FAT32.
For compatibility, you NEED FAT32. Most OS's will read and write FAT32 with no problem, but NTFS is effectively a closed shop unless you have specific drivers that are not always easy to obtain and are not always reliable - many will not let you write to NTFS partitions, only read.