Microsoft introduced exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table, aka FAT64) is a proprietary file system suited especially for flash drives starting with Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
Some advantages of exFAT over FAT32 are:
> Scalability to large disk sizes
> Theoretical file size limit of 16 Exabytes, limit lifted from 4 Gigabytes in FAT16.
> Support for more than 1000 files in a single directory.
> Free space allocation and delete performance improved due to introduction of a free space bitmap.
> Support for access control lists.
> Support for Transaction-Safe FAT File System.
> Provision for OEM-definable parameters to customize the file system for specific device characteristics.
We can’t access exFAT formatted partition or removable devices in all Windows OSs excluding Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. But don’t worry…I have found an solution for this prob. Now atleast you access exFAT formatted partition. I have tried on Windows XP SP3…and it works flawlessly. It may work on earlier version of Windows too.
How to-
1) Download exFAT File System Driver
2) Copy exfat.sys and uexfat.dll into %windir%\System32\Drivers and %windir%\System32 respectively.
3) Copy the Reg code, given below into Notepad and Save as exFAT.reg
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\exfat]
“Description”=”exFAT File System Driver”
“DisplayName”=”exFAT File System Driver”
“ErrorControl”=dword:00000001
“Group”=”Boot File System”
“Start”=dword:00000002
“Type”=dword:00000002
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\System\exfat]
“EventMessageFile”=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,\
00,6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,\
5c,00,49,00,6f,00,4c,00,6f,00,67,00,4d,00,73,00,67,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,\
00,00,00
“TypesSupported”=dword:00000007
4) Double click on Reg File (exFAT.reg) to patch it.
5) Restart your PC to take effect.
ENJOY ! Happy Windows Computing. 