AFAIK, the 32 GB limit is in certain BIOSes, and in certain versions of FDISK and/or FORMAT.

If your BIOS can see the 64 GB, and you managed to create and format the partition, it will probably work fine.

Nevertheless, I would take the opportunity to perform thoroguh data integrity test - fill the entire card with ZIP (or any other archiver) files, and verify checksums, eg. "unzip -t *.zip".
Only the paranoid survive!

Microsoft artificially limited FAT32 to 32GB to push people to NTFS. There is no technical reason why an OS supporting FAT32 can't handle partition or volume sizes above 32GB, including reading and writing to areas above 32GB. In fact, the FAT32 specification allows for a maximum volume size of 16TB at 4k sector sizes, and 2TB partition sizes at 512 byte sector sizes.

In practice, I've never had a problem with FAT32 on drives as large as 80GB. But as Grzyb said, trust but verify.

aspiringnobody wrote on 2025-10-13, 04:11:

Heya all -- […]
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Heya all --

I've managed to install Windows 95 (the unofficial D "update") onto a 64GB CF card without issue. I'm just wondering if this is one of those cases where as soon as the PC tries to write to somewhere above 32GB I'm going to get data corruption. Everywhere online I can find seems to say that OSR2+ with FAT32 is limited to 32GB HDDs.

Thanks,
AN

It is not a limit with disk size per se, but volume size - and it only affects select utilities from Microsoft. You can use hard disks or storage devices much larger than 32 GB as long as you break them down to one primary partition (or volume) that is 32 GB, and x number of logical drives inside the extended partition (drives D:, E:, F:, etc.).

As stated, you'll probably have to use Free FDISK or another utility to substitute the one shipped with Windows 95 to get the disk layout properly set up if it is larger. Formatting each volume can be done with format.com, though.

Win95 will likely hit the 128gb LBA28 limit.

To my knowledge, win95 never got an LBA48 capable version of atapi.sys

OzzFan wrote on 2025-10-13, 09:57:

Microsoft artificially limited FAT32 to 32GB to push people to NTFS. There is no technical reason why an OS supporting FAT32 can't handle partition or volume sizes above 32GB, including reading and writing to areas above 32GB. In fact, the FAT32 specification allows for a maximum volume size of 16TB at 4k sector sizes, and 2TB partition sizes at 512 byte sector sizes.

In practice, I've never had a problem with FAT32 on drives as large as 80GB. But as Grzyb said, trust but verify.

Win95B/C supposedly had an actual 32GB limit that was fixed in Windows 98: https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/Patches/ftp.microso … -us/246/818.HTM
I thought I read an actual reason for this limit somewhere (such as maximum fat32 cluster size or maximum number of clusters) but can't find it, anywhere.

This article describes a 128GB limit in scandisk in Windows 98: https://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php/Mi … _Archive/184006

Windows 98 and ME had no 32GB limit, beyond some cosmetic issues in Format that I recall. Windows 2000 artificially re-capped FAT32 at 32GB. As you say, as knowledge of Win98/ME faded, it then became mythical that FAT32 has a 32GB limit, mostly run into in modern times when USB flash drives grew beyond that.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-13, 14:45:

Win95 will likely hit the 128gb LBA28 limit.

To my knowledge, win95 never got an LBA48 capable version of atapi.sys

Interestingly, after formatting an external hard disk on my Mac as FAT32, it seems to be properly detected and functioning on my Win95-system:

I'm going to try and see if I can also partition and format this into smaller volumes using Free FDISK 1.4.4...

leonardo wrote on 2025-10-13, 15:48:

Interestingly, after formatting an external hard disk on my Mac as FAT32, it seems to be properly detected and functioning on my […]
Show full quote

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-13, 14:45:

Win95 will likely hit the 128gb LBA28 limit.

To my knowledge, win95 never got an LBA48 capable version of atapi.sys

Interestingly, after formatting an external hard disk on my Mac as FAT32, it seems to be properly detected and functioning on my Win95-system:

The attachment FAT32-250GB-HDD-win95.png is no longer available

I'm going to try and see if I can also partition and format this into smaller volumes using Free FDISK 1.4.4...

Do as gryzb suggests, and test files at the end of the disk. 😁

(See, a bios that does 48bit lba will allow you to create very large volumes, and *DOS*, using the bios supplied in13, *CAN* see the whole volume. Windows, with its 32bit disk access driver, atapi.sys, does not use the bios supplied int13. It takes over disk access completely. Win95 never got a 48bit aware atapi.sys.. You need to TEST if files after the 28bit LBA mark are actually readable, from inside windows.)

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-13, 15:57:

leonardo wrote on 2025-10-13, 15:48:

Interestingly, after formatting an external hard disk on my Mac as FAT32, it seems to be properly detected and functioning on my […]
Show full quote

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-13, 14:45:

Win95 will likely hit the 128gb LBA28 limit.

To my knowledge, win95 never got an LBA48 capable version of atapi.sys

Interestingly, after formatting an external hard disk on my Mac as FAT32, it seems to be properly detected and functioning on my Win95-system:

The attachment FAT32-250GB-HDD-win95.png is no longer available

I'm going to try and see if I can also partition and format this into smaller volumes using Free FDISK 1.4.4...

Do as gryzb suggests, and test files at the end of the disk. 😁

(See, a bios that does 48bit lba will allow you to create very large volumes, and *DOS*, using the bios supplied in13, *CAN* see the whole volume. Windows, with its 32bit disk access driver, atapi.sys, does not use the bios supplied int13. It takes over disk access completely. Win95 never got a 48bit aware atapi.sys.. You need to TEST if files after the 28bit LBA mark are actually readable, from inside windows.)

I don't have enough stuff on my setup to fill a 250 GB disk beyond that limit, but I do recall there being some funky stuff earlier which is why I've stuck to 32 GB volumes or smaller to avoid trouble. 😀

That said, I was able to divide up the disk into smaller segments with fdisk and am now in the process of formatting them to see if all goes well over USB...

Fun fact: fdisk told me to restart my system but I was able to simply eject the USB disk and reconnect it to see all the new drive letters.

Fun fact:

Defraggler has a 'move to end of disk' option in its cluster view picker.

This can be used on a modern windows box to move a test file to the *VEEEERY BOTTOM* of the volume, and thus, *AFTER* the LBA28 mark on a >128gb fat32 partition, even on a 'Really, it's basically empty' initial setup.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-10-13, 15:23:

Win95B/C supposedly had an actual 32GB limit that was fixed in Windows 98: https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/Patches/ftp.microso … -us/246/818.HTM
I thought I read an actual reason for this limit somewhere (such as maximum fat32 cluster size or maximum number of clusters) but can't find it, anywhere.

This article describes a 128GB limit in scandisk in Windows 98: https://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php/Mi … _Archive/184006

I think that was merely a programming error on Microsoft's behalf, not necessarily a technical barrier to having large FAT32 drives. Had MS written FDISK and SCANDISK differently, those bug fixes wouldn't have been needed.