The ADS bootloaders only support FAT12 and FAT16 (also called just FAT) formatted cards for updating system files. This is becomming more and more of an issue as larger cards become available and the price of them comes down.
Cards with a capacity of 32MB or less will always be FAT becasue there are not enough available clusters to be formatted FAT32. Larger cards however will support either FAT or FAT32. It appears that Windows XP will try to use FAT32 by default for larger cards when you format.
It is possible to format a large card in FAT format compatible with the ADS bootloader as follows:
Open the command prompt on your PC (from the [Start] button, choose 'Run' and type in "cmd").
Type the following at the command line, where {drive} is the letter of your CF drive:
format {drive}: /fs:FAT /v:FATDrive /y
CE Supports Fat and FAT32
Once CE is running, FAT32 is supported by the OS and cards formatted as such will appear as a 'Storage Card' folder just like a FAT16 or FAT12 card.
Other Topics
Some related Forum topics that also discuss this issue: Topic 1162: Determining the Format of your CompactFlash Card Topic 1163: Formatting CF cards to work with ADS boot code Topic 147: Can't read FAT32/NTFS ATA card
Edited by akidder 1-May-2006: remove screen capture image