# FAT32 format error



## balanga (Apr 7, 2017)

After creating a 1GB partition and trying to format it as FAT32 using:-

```
gpart add -t fat32 -s 1g da0
newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/da0s2
```

I get:-

```
newfs_msdos: trim 8 sectors to adjust to a multiple of 63
newfs_msdos: 65502 clusters too few clusters for FAT32, need 65525
```

Anyone know how to get around this?

Inerestingly, if I create a FAT16 partition immediately before this FAT32 partition, I don't get this error.


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## ShelLuser (Apr 9, 2017)

Well, I think the error is pretty self-explaining but newfs_msdos(8) also mentions this:


```
NOTES
     If some parameters (e.g. size, number of sectors, etc.) are not specified
     through options or disktype, the program tries to generate them automati-
     cally.  In particular, the size is determined as the device or file size
     minus the offset specified with the -@ option.  When the geometry is not
     available, it is assumed to be 63 sectors, 255 heads.  The size is then
     rounded to become a multiple of the track size and avoid complaints by
     some filesystem code.
```
So either increase the amount of clusters (as suggested), provide the exact size to newfs_msdos or try using an offset.


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