UEFI + FAT32 limit to 4GB wim files on USB pendrives

Mr.X · Apr 5, 2014

Recently I sent a message to the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Forum. They replied, but it's not that clear for me. Please anybody who wants to elaborate and shed more light on the topic?

My message:

Hello,

As a PC technician I have and many others too, the necessity of NTFS support when deploying for instance Windows OS via USB pendrives with over-sized (+4GB) install.wim. UEFI currently supports only FAT32 and this file-system has the limitation to hold files up to 4GB in size.

Are you planning a new Revision to address this issue?

Thanks in advance for your kind reply.

Regards.
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Answer:

Dear Mister X,

Thank you for reaching out to the UEFI Forum. Unfortunately we do not have an answer from the standard perspective, but IBVs and OEMs may have some solutions in this space (not using non-FAT32 for ESP though). For now this is an area where there is differentiation among vendors; therefore some machines may be able to handle this whereas others may not.

Thank you,
Steve

Steve Young
UEFI Administration
3855 SW 153^rd Drive
Beaverton, OR 97006
Tel: (503) 619-0864
Fax: (503) 644-6708
E-mail: admin@uefi.org
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UEFI + FAT32 limit to 4GB wim files on USB pendrives

Mr.X MDL Guru