How To Format USB Drive and Memory Stick With NTFS

How to format USB drive and memory stick with NTFS
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/format-usb-ntfs/

Posted on April 17, 2008 at 5:00 am
If you have ever tried to format a USB thumb drive or memory stick, you may have noticed that the only options you get are FAT and FAT32 file systems. This is the default behavior in Windows XP. However, with some slight tweaking of settings, you can actually format your removable storage devices in NTFS format, including external hard drives, etc. Of course, there is a reason why Windows defaults the formatting of removable storage to FAT and FAT32. There are actually a few advantages and disadvantages to formatting a USB drive in NTFS format, so well go through those before actually talking about how to do it. The advantages of enabling NTFS of removable storage devices are mostly security related. For example, an NTFS file system lets you to add allow and deny permissions on individual files and folders for specific Windows users, something you cannot do in the FAT file system. But thats not all in terms of security. You can also encrypt files using Windows XPs built-in encryption. Other benefits include the ability to compress files and therefore save space on your USB drive. You can also set disk quotas and even create partitions! Formatting USB drives in NTFS has several advantages that would be good if you need to use some of these advanced features, i.e. for your IT department or if youre just paranoid! However, there are also a few drawbacks to using NFTS on a USB drive. Firstly, there is a lot more writing to the drive that is required when using NTFS and therefore your access to the device will be slower. Will it make a major difference that would prevent people from using it? Probably not, but its something to consider. Also, versions of Windows older than 2000 cannot read NTFS file systems, nor can most Linux systems. The other major downside is that if you encrypt your files on the USB drive, you will not be able to open them anywhere else. Actually, this can be considered a downside or an upside depending on what you want to do. If you want to secure your USB stick so that only your user account on your one computer can open the files,
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then encrypting is perfect. If not, then do not encrypt the files. How to format USB drive with NTFS First, connect your USB device to your computer. Then right-click on My Computer from the desktop and choose Manage.
Next click on Device Manager and then expand out Disk Drives. You should see your USB drive listed there as Generic USB 2.0 USB Drive or something similar.
Now right-click on the USB drive under Disk Drives and choose Properties. Then go to the Policies tab.
Now you will see two options, the Optimize for quick removal selected by default. Go ahead and change that by selecting the Optimize for performance option. This enables writing caching on the drive and therefore allows you to format it as NTFS! Sweet. Thats it. Now click OK and then go to My Computer. Right click on the drive in My Computer and choose Format. In the File System drop down you will now see the option for NTFS!
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You can now secure your USB flash drive or external USB hard drive in any way you like! Enjoy! Source: PCtipsBox [tags]format ntfs usb, format usb flash ntfs, format usb stick ntfs, format thumbdrive ntfs[/tags] Filed Under Computer Tips
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Comments
128 Responses to How to format USB drive and memory stick with NTFS
1. Mika said on : April 18th, 2008 at 6:31 am Cool tip. Doesnt seem to work for me though. Im using Vista SP1 and Verbatim Storen'Go 8 GB usb stick. Even after optimizing for performance, format to NTFS always fails Format to exFAT or FAT32 always succeeds, though.
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2. akishore said on : April 18th, 2008 at 3:36 pm Hey Mika, What error are you getting? Can you write it out so I can try to figure what the problem is. 3. Mika said on : April 19th, 2008 at 3:45 am Comment in Vista was a dialog info/warning box saying something like windows is unable to format the drive. Unfortunately I cannot now redo the operation for screenshot (I can maybe try later) as I have some important files on the disk (on FAT32, of course). Interestingly I also tried to do the format inside windows xp installer (format drive to ntfs), that failed too. So I guess its an issue with the Verbatim flash stick. 4. Dean said on : April 23rd, 2008 at 9:08 am Thanks for the tip! I also have the Verbatim StorenGo 8 GB usb stick but I am running XP with SP2. I had no problem formatting to NTFS. 5. Gabriel said on : April 24th, 2008 at 1:33 am I tried formatting with my drive from fat32 to ntfs, but i receive the reponse Windows was unable to complete the format. And i am using windows Xp. What next? 6. Wolf said on : April 24th, 2008 at 11:30 am Same error for me I tried above without success. I am using Vista SP1. 7. braiden said on : May 18th, 2008 at 12:05 pm ive got a PNY Attache 16gig it work like a charm The main reason i use NTFS is it allows single file sizes larger than 2 gig which FAT32 doesnt . 8. Galen Cartright said on : May 18th, 2008 at 10:59 pm I tried the same thing as you layed out. I get the same message except now the DataStick Pro 4 GB that I am using has deleted the fat 32 format and will not complete NTFS formating. All it say is that windows cannot complete formatting. 9. Andi said on : May 28th, 2008 at 9:24 am When i finished my download such as games and application to my usb alcor 2gb, after completed the
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icons shows corrupt file (cant execute). my usb format using fat32. What kind of format better, pls tell 10. ALEX DICK said on : June 11th, 2008 at 11:36 pm Tambien le podemos Cambiar el formato a nuestra memoria usb en el simbolo del sistema con el comando convert y dejar tus archivos intactos sin necesidad de formatear: Para convertir una particin FAT en NTFS, siga estos pasos. 1. Haga clic en Inicio, en Programas y, a continuacin, en Smbolo del sistema. En Windows XP, haga clic en Inicio y, a continuacin, en Ejecutar. 2. En el smbolo de sistema, escriba CONVERT [letra_unidad]: /FS:NTFS . 3. Convert.exe intentar convertir la particin en NTFS. 11. Tatoosh said on : June 16th, 2008 at 12:52 am I tried your steps for Win XP and a USB connected hard drive. No joy. Win98 knows it is the drive is there, I get the little ding dong connect sound, it shows up in the device manager. I even populated info via device manager. But when I go to My Computer, no hard drive. Cant format what I cant see. I tried the enclosure that holds the hard drive with a second older formatted hard drive and it worked like a charm. So it isnt the interface hardware. It is the new 160 gig Seagate that I bought for a backup system. I thought Id format in NTFS for security sake, but at this point, Id take it either system. 12. Tatoosh said on : June 16th, 2008 at 12:53 am Oops! Make that Win XP knows the drive is there I dunno why I got Win98 on the brain. Sorry. 13. CARLOS said on : June 16th, 2008 at 10:30 am No he podido realizar el formato de la usb he seguido los pasos de la guia pero ha sido imposible con ntfs no se da formato 14. Steve said on : June 30th, 2008 at 8:08 am Also, versions of Windows older than 2000 cannot read NTFS file systems, nor can most Linux systems. This is true for the Win9x era of operating systems, but if you look at the majority of recent Linux distributions within the last few years, the bulk majority of Linux systems do read NTFS filesystems. NTFS read & write support within Linux has been around for quite a while now (OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, Debian, Slackware..this list goes on and on). This is also true of USB thumbdrive / mass storage support.
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This was an informative article, but would you please consider revising your information regarding Linux NTFS support? IMHO, your statement above is bit misleading. 15. superxaba said on : July 10th, 2008 at 6:19 am Thank you master! 16. Carl said on : July 15th, 2008 at 4:50 am Worked a treat, but did have to unplug, then re plug in the drive. Thanks 17. Rick said on : July 20th, 2008 at 3:48 am i have a WD 120GB external hard-drive and would like to format it to NTFS but i have files saved in it..will these files be erased if i format it? 18. itwontwork said on : August 15th, 2008 at 7:42 pm Im having the same problem as tatoosh. nothing in my computer, but when i populate the fields in device manager properties- volume, it knows that the hard drive has a total capacity of 238GB. Brand new drive why cant i access it to format it? 19. problem... said on : August 18th, 2008 at 8:08 am hey, i have an 8gb emtec thumb drive and i formatted it the other day. it formatted it to fat32. but now it says there is 2gb of data remaining (only 200mb of my files) and the rest is used, most likely from the formatting. can anyone help me out plz. thnks 20. WhiskeyCobra said on : September 9th, 2008 at 7:16 pm For Tatoosh and itwontwork: I had the same problem about a month ago with a brand new drive. I was even able to format it (using third party soft) but it didnt showed up on My PC (although it did on the BIOS and the Device manager). Ultimately, I figured out that Windows XP wasnt assigning a drive letter. Dont ask me why. So I used Hard Disk Manager (buy it or get it somewhere) to assign a letter (D:) and that was the end of it. 21. grommett said on : September 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am i found that after making the change in device manger i was only shown fat and fat32 as options in disk manager for formatting the usb-stick. i exited computer manager, then went to windows explorer and was shown fat32 and ntfs as options to format same usb-stick. it then formatted ok as ntfs. hope this helps some.
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22. Omar said on : September 28th, 2008 at 8:06 am lo que pasa es que mi flash son dos unidades y la que quiero formatear no aparece una dice cd drive kingston U3 y la otra solo disk removable pero desde el administrador no me aparece que hago 23. Yelostang said on : October 9th, 2008 at 1:03 pm Thank you very much, been trying to figure this out for weeks. Worked perfect on my 16gb USB drive using Windows XP SP3. 24. Solved said on : October 14th, 2008 at 6:39 am I wanted to format to NTFS since FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit, hindering large iso files from being copied. Changing policies to Optimized for Performance did not help on a XP-SP3 and Sony 8.1 GB USB. So I mounted it on Ubuntu Linux, ran GParted and removed the bloody partition gave it my own label and now I can format it anyway I want. 25. Eric said on : October 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm As a Network Admin, I carry a lot of data on my 32Gb Corsair USB Thumb Drive. Most of which is Corporation Sensitive Data, which needed to be encrypted. I knew there was a way to format it in NTFS, but couldnt remember how. Thanks for the tip. 26. rubenpjr40 said on : October 24th, 2008 at 9:33 pm Many wrote that they couldnt format their thumb drives to ntfs following your suggestions but no one gave an alternative method. What do you do when you cant format the drive to ntfs after following your instructions? 27. evil flying monkey of death said on : October 27th, 2008 at 11:36 am Im sure everyones mileage varies, but I managed to format a usb stick as NTFS ages ago without changing any settings in Windows (XP) I just right-clicked the drive, selected format, and it was an option I just tried on another XP PC, and although the format dialog didnt give me an NTFS option, using the command line allowed it, which seems a little bizarre! The main reason I tried it was to get on-the-fly compression on a 128MB drive, and large files on an 8GB drive. I did a quick search just now to make sure I hadnt missed any potential drawbacks (like increased wear on the drive or something) and came across this article. Regarding Linux, not only can most distributions now reliably read/write NTFS partitions, you can actually make an NTFS filesystem on a device (i.e. format it) from Linux in the same manner as any other supported filesystem. In fact, it must be theoretically possible to use Linux to make an NTFS-formatted file or even a floppy-disk, though Ive no idea what Windows would make of it! You can, of course, also format your USB-stick in EXT2 or 3, and then access it from Windows with one of the 3rd party drivers out there. If you mostly used Linux, then EXT2 or 3 would prove a lot
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quicker and a little more robust in general usage OSs always read their native formats most quickly and reliably. Youd have to be careful not to run into permissions issues when copying files between different computers, though. 28. l3utterfish said on : October 30th, 2008 at 11:44 am also get the error message.. any workaround? 29. John Galt said on : November 12th, 2008 at 6:48 pm I formatted my USB drive using Kpart in Knoppix (a linux distro) It allows you to select NTFS directly. It will also resize a partition. The Problem I had is trying to add multiple partitions. I made the USB bootable and installed Knoppix on it. Then, I shrunk the partition leaving most of the drive unused. I then created another partition in the remaining space and formatted it FAT32. It works fine on Linux, but XP doesnt see the second partition. Would it work better if I formatted NTFS rather than FAT32? 30. Joe said on : November 13th, 2008 at 5:15 am Hi I have a 16GB Memory USB Stick. When I copy files onto it & then try to read then read them.it reads in Asian.not English. I have tried many times & have done a reformat & then it still does the same. The USB IS IN fat32 FORMAT & WONT ALLOW ME TO CHANGE IT TO ANOTHER FORMAT. WHY????? 31. Yazan said on : November 15th, 2008 at 8:54 pm Hey there! That was extremely helpful! I nearly gone mad on how would I change the FAT to some other type. Thanks, seriously. Really appreciated. 32. David said on : November 21st, 2008 at 4:52 pm I have a 8 gb memory card and its only wanting to format a 4gb memory card can you suggest something? Other than that one problem i found this site amazing. I have never formated a thing before and this was step by step (great) 33. Lampish said on : November 22nd, 2008 at 8:16 am Thank yoy! Works 100% 34. Dina said on : November 28th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
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Thank you!!! Worked like a charm. 35. Thomas said on : December 7th, 2008 at 8:25 am Hi Cool tip But my USB stick performance (Kingston datatraveler 8Gig) is much slower when I switched to NTFS. So I switched back to FAT32. 36. Darren Powell said on : December 10th, 2008 at 3:51 pm Are there any other solutions to formatting Flash Drives to NTFS? Ive tried everything the policies / optimise for performance cache thingo yes, the option to format to NTFS is there but I get the windows was unable to complete the format. Ive tried the HP USB Storage Format Tool V2.0.6 and tried NTFS in there but I get RED X Failed to Format the Device whats the point of having 16GB of Flash Storage and I cant copy files larger than a couple of gig any other suggestions appreciated is there a force your USB drive to accept NTFS utility out there anywhere? Cheers, Dman 37. john holland said on : December 16th, 2008 at 7:52 pm Thanks works fine, Greetings from holland 38. W.H. said on : December 20th, 2008 at 6:33 pm Just curious, for the Format options: (1) Quick Format, and (2) Enable Compression, should I check on these two checkboxes? Whats the pros and cons for these two options? Thanks! 39. Pheidias Bourlas said on : January 11th, 2009 at 8:09 am Why are you bothering with FORMAT? No need to FORMAT. Just open a DOS (Command Prompt) window, give (e.g. if your USB is volume F: and has label my_volume): CONVERT F: my_volume /FS:NTFS and thats it! Simple, quick, safe and always working! 40. High-Voltage said on : January 12th, 2009 at 1:02 pm The main reason to format a USB-stick in NTFS is because of the file size. In FAT32 files are limited to 4G. An ISO DVD-rip mostley is a little larger so you cant get it on stick. Nowadays USB sticks are
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about 8G and more so it could be usefull to format them in NTFS. 41. Bug user said on : January 20th, 2009 at 9:18 am Heres a nice XP bug for you: Make sure optomize for quick-removal is on. It wont let you format to ntfs? oh ok this is how its done. 1. open device manager 2. Go to disk management 3. Select the optomized for quick removal partition 4. Right click and select format you now have an NTFS option even with quick removal on. 42. djinn said on : February 11th, 2009 at 10:51 am thanks! no probs whatsoever. im using an 8gb PQI Traveling Disk i221 on WinXP Pro Sp3 43. Michael Dolby said on : February 21st, 2009 at 12:50 pm I am unable to format my 8GB USB device in NTFS. Have tried everything what has been suggested here nothing worked. Please dont say stuff like: its easy, or it always works because it doesnt for everyone. Have tried EVERYTHING on my Vista desktop as well as on my XP laptop no joy. tbc 44. Nat said on : March 14th, 2009 at 1:28 pm Have followed all the advice, done everything possible, Just like Michael and no bloody luck! Help! 45. Robot said on : March 14th, 2009 at 2:07 pm Im using xp pro sp2 and Ive tried all the steps listed but still cant format my new 2gig Toshiba flash. The usual msg Windows was unable to complete the format is all I get from windows explorer but using command prompt with the following parameter where E is my flash drive: FORMAT E: /FS:NTFS /X I get the following result at the end THE SECOND NTFS BOOT SECTOR IS UNWRITEABLE. Format failed. Has anyone got suggestion for this case? 46. racquelanne said on : March 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 am
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i cant format my flash drive even though i use ntfs.when i do it a message that says windows was unable to complete the format. 47. Paul said on : March 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm Hi, Im Unable to format my 16GB Kingston USB stick, It has worked fine for weeks but suddenly stopped after I deleted all the data and is now asking me to format the drive which Im unable to Ive tried changing to NTFS but I still get the windows was unable to format message, please help Im going mad! 48. SpeedyDay said on : April 2nd, 2009 at 11:34 am I have a Kingston 64GB which I bought.. and have had problems since I received it. I have tried to format it in either fat32 or ntfs with no luck. Can any, please tell me what other means can I use to format. I have tried : cmd format /fs:fat32 e: NO GOOD and changing through disk management no good.. any suggestions??? 49. Michael Dolby said on : April 2nd, 2009 at 9:48 pm Hi Nat, Robot, SpeedyDay and everyone else who isnt able to format their USB device. Going to Start / typing in CMD / right clicking and selecting run as administrator, typing: format e: /q /fs:ntfs (e = drive letter of my USB device) still resulting in Unable to format. Having discussed this subject in a computer forum, I have come to the conclusion that the fault is on my USB device. Having applied: chkdsk e: /f (e = drive letter of my USB device) doesnt find anything wrong though. If its really faulty or just incompatible I dont know. But I have given up. A pitty really, because I would have loved to try out this: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1381323 50. MentalNotes said on : April 4th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
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NTFS support under Ubuntu works well for me and has done so for a while now. @John Galt: Windows doesnt support more than one partition on a USB drive. Very annoying. 51. Rensking said on : April 18th, 2009 at 10:28 am First Formatt the USB-Device FAT32 in disk manager(in computer management), Right click on the USB device > Format > Make sure the file system is FAT32 than it says someting like FORCE the USB device to Formatt click on Yes than try the method above again:), this worked for me. 52. Juan said on : May 5th, 2009 at 4:54 pm It was fine. You forgot to say that if you format the USB drive with NTFS, you can tranfer large files (more than 4 Gb) like HD movies. I have XP SP2 Thanks. 53. Kenny said on : June 4th, 2009 at 7:38 pm Windows was unable to complete the Format.. 54. Arshad Hussain said on : July 4th, 2009 at 11:23 pm Dear Sir, Could you please let me know, how can I partition my memory stick in a Windows XP system? 55. dave said on : July 18th, 2009 at 8:43 pm I am running windows XP media centre edition. Reformatted Kingston 16 Gb stick memory to NTFS and it worked just fine. Thanks. 56. Wayne Kay said on : September 21st, 2009 at 3:56 pm Worked the first time. Thank you soooo much! 57. Travis said on : September 22nd, 2009 at 9:50 am Thanks for the heads-up but for some reason mine ONLY gives me the option for FAT32??? 58. Mark said on : October 12th, 2009 at 8:18 am HiThis is a very interesting site. I was reading the other posts here about some problems people were
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having trying to format their drives and adding partitions,etc. I am certainly not an expert by any means,but i like to read up on misc. things and I read something somewhere that might give others an idea on what the problem might be. 1.Problem With Formatting Drive: I seem to have read something somewhere (sorry, i cant remember where it was, so cant verify accuracy), but it said that you can only format to NTFS once. You CANNOT reformat back to FAT or FAT32 once you have gone to NTFS. I dont know why, or if this is accurate, but if it is, it might explain some problems with trying to reformat. 2. Adding Multiple Partitions: I also read somewhere(again, I cant remember where it was),something about if you want to add multiple partitions, that you need to make one of the partitions a Primary partition. I believe the system may get confused and not know which part of the drive or partition to go to if you dont do this. Again, I admit I am not an expert here at all,just relaying some information I read somewhere. I hope this helps and good luck! 59. Nitin chandna said on : November 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm Thanks a ton it worksUSB stick is now NTFS. 60. sarah said on : November 11th, 2009 at 11:10 am please help ive just inserted my memory stick and its saying I need to format it, but if i do i will lose all my data! Ive got windows XP and am desperate .This memory stick worked perfectly well on sunday on this computer!!!! 61. Asher said on : November 17th, 2009 at 5:45 pm Worked perfectly for me on a Kingston 8 gig usb stick. Im running Windows XP Pro. Thanks a lot! Great tip! 62. Teris said on : November 25th, 2009 at 10:46 pm Hi. No problems with either file system. FAT32 is more reliable, and when something goes wrong its easier to work with. I prefer fat32 for important files & backups. Strangely enough and even on a USB drive NTFS is faster in both read & write. I did notice some odd things between USB 1.x and 2.0 Between computers and formatting FAT32 or NTFS (32bit systems)
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Formating NTFS on a USB 1.x port system is not all that fast for use in that host system. However the USB 2.0 system can read the NTFS perfectly fine. Also if formated NTFS on the USB 2.0 system the USB 1.x system read/write twice the speed that its own NTFS formating. To the contrary FAT32 works better on the USB 1.x system. There is obviously a USB legacy tendency involved here. I have a couple SSD drives and there is little difference in performance between FAT32 and NTFS of identical size partitions. Enjoy. 63. rohit23111986 said on : November 26th, 2009 at 11:03 am This is really useful! Now that my USB drive is formatted in NTFS format, I am securing confidential folders. Thanks. 64. Dale M said on : November 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pm For those that are still having trouble formatting a USB drive, sometimes when you format the partition etc is removed and you are left with raw drive space only. I have found a small utility that may reformat for you. Here is the web site http://h50178.www5.hp.com/supp.....17550.html 65. TyBARRETT said on : November 27th, 2009 at 9:14 pm I have a 1TB Western Digital Elements external HDD my coumputer doesnt show FAT32 but lists exFAT is this the same thing? 66. mike roberts said on : November 29th, 2009 at 10:32 am Well done Dale M thats the solution that should work for all. 67. arshad said on : December 4th, 2009 at 1:33 am i have a usb drive 128GB, now I can not format it because the virtual expander program on it is deleted, I tried by using all means , can some one give me a clue how to format it and reuse it , thanks 68. John said on : December 4th, 2009 at 2:00 pm Not only NTFS format failed but now I cant format my usb drive at all and says the file system now is RAW and I can do nothing with it! How do I fix this ? Fat and Fat32 format is not option any more only NTFS that fails 69. Winjarra said on : December 4th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
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Worked like a dream, thank. 70. John said on : December 5th, 2009 at 4:05 am Ok i fixed the problem with Dale Ms program but still i cant make my 64mb usb 2.0 ntfs, that i need so i cant watch HD movies at the WD media player 71. Captain Sparkle said on : December 15th, 2009 at 5:38 pm You are a lifesaver. fantastico!! USB drive is not NTFS! 72. glenn said on : December 15th, 2009 at 10:01 pm ok what you want to do for you xp users is click start, right click on my computer, then left click on manage then computer management. find hard drive then right click and partition, I used fat but not sure about ntfs. 73. William said on : December 19th, 2009 at 5:38 pm yippee it works used program HP program suggested by dale m in Comment 64. Worked a treat 100% Fat32 OS I am using Is windows7 64bit. Just make sure when using program you right click on administator rights Now going to try see can I convert to NTFS will comment if successful 74. Marko said on : December 22nd, 2009 at 1:53 pm thank You man, very cool tip. am running LastXP, it is modification of XP, something between Vista and XP, and works great 75. John said on : December 25th, 2009 at 7:05 am hello, Im having problems with my memory card.. is that posible to format it? Im just having problems with putting files onto it (on a mobile phone) and someone told to format it.. im trying, but dont know exactly how do it.. could u please help me? 76. SteveM said on : December 29th, 2009 at 10:55 am I accidentally formatted my 1Gb memory stick it was in a laptop Im trying to re-load XP to: asked if I wanted to re-format drive, and I OKd this thinking it referred to HDD.
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Put stick in another PC, which said it needed formatting, and with same reults as others here Windows was unable to complete the format. Ive tried this for NTFS / FAT; quick and ordinary format. Instead of needs formatting, when I click on drive in My Computer, I now get Please Insert a disc into drive I. In Disc Management, its space (down to 949Mb) is flagged up as unallocated, wheras space on other discs is all flagged as healthy. Any ideas please? 77. drakull said on : December 29th, 2009 at 8:05 pm I tried formatting with my drive from fat32 to ntfs, but i receive the reponse Windows was unable to complete the format. And i am using windows Xp. What next? 78. Lelly said on : January 5th, 2010 at 3:33 pm Worked for me however the speed is still poor on my 8gig mem card to copy 650 meg 5mins any help ? 79. Simon said on : January 7th, 2010 at 6:20 am Hi everybody Have just been reading through everyones comments and there doesnt seem to be anyone with my problem, which is after following the steps: no option of selecting NTFS. I have optimized for performance but there is just no option under file system to format to NTFS. I have also tried to format drive to ntfs via the cmd without any luck. 80. vignesh said on : January 11th, 2010 at 11:54 am i formatted the memory stick in DOS without giving any file system format. after that im not able to access that card. can u help me to format it with FAT32 format so I can use it. 81. Rash said on : January 13th, 2010 at 5:56 am Thanks guys! It was really simple formatting my USB stick with NTFS 82. TNT2023 said on : January 14th, 2010 at 4:25 am how to format a USB drive in FAT32 ??? 83. LUIS said on : January 15th, 2010 at 10:53 am Thank you very much for this information, it works great! I also had a question. Will formatting my 8GB USB stick to NTFS and back to FAT32 cause it to go bad or become damaged in any way? Thanks!
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84. Martin said on : January 16th, 2010 at 5:13 pm How can I format my USB stick? I followed your steps and nothing. It said that windows could not complete formatany other suggestions? thanks 85. Dale M said on : January 18th, 2010 at 12:25 pm If you read through the comments there are programs available to help with the formatting. If you still cannot get the drive to format then it is probably a fake. I came across some of them. MY previous comment was #64. 86. Wilcar said on : January 22nd, 2010 at 12:02 pm I tried to format my pen drive (8 gb Kingston DataTraveler) to NTFS, but I received the message Windows could not complete the format. And Im using Windows XP. Any help? 87. GB said on : January 22nd, 2010 at 6:19 pm I have a 64G Kingston data traveller that I really want to format NTFS. I can easily do FAT 32 and it works great, but every way I try to get it to go NTFS it fails.and I have tried all posted above. I even tried the HP utility that Dale posted in #64 but no luck. I have tried several PCs with different versions of Windows. Same thing every timeit gets all the way to the end and says drive failed to format. Any more suggestions? 88. kiki said on : January 24th, 2010 at 5:37 pm I have tried to convert in VISTA FAT32 to NFTS on the USB drive and the following error message showed up: Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002] Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Windows\system32>CONVERT F: /FS:NTFS The type of the file system is FAT32. Volume Serial Number is 50D3-CA68 Windows is verifying files and folders File and folder verification is complete. Windows has checked the file system and found no problems. 16,572,384 KB total disk space. 16,572,376 KB are available. 8,192 bytes in each allocation unit. 2,071,548 total allocation units on disk. 2,071,547 allocation units available on disk. Determining disk space required for file system conversion Total disk space: 16588768 KB
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Free space on volume: 16572376 KB Space required for conversion: 82823 KB Converting file system The first NTFS boot sector is unwriteable. All NTFS boot sectors are unwriteable. Cannot continue. It is stuck!!! Please help. Thanks! As well I tried to use USB format tool and the same error showed up 89. mahmood said on : January 26th, 2010 at 9:48 am How to format a 128 GB usb drive without using Windows? Can someone help? 90. Rusty149 said on : February 3rd, 2010 at 8:03 am NTFS read/write support IS included in Linux. For formatting NTFS in Linux, use GParted (best disk utility in the world). Running from a Linux live CD GParted and NTFS will packages will be installed already. To format drives into NTFS in ubuntu Linux: 1) Open terminal and type, sudo apt-get install gparted ntfsprogs 2) Open GParted from System > Administration > GParted Using it is self explanatory. So please dont listen to what is said in this article it is out of date. 91. computer novice said on : February 21st, 2010 at 1:04 pm Question of speed.. For a 8GB or 16GB USB Flash Drive (Patriot Xporter XT), which format is typicaly faster at reading and writing files size less than 2GB faster overall,, FAT32 or NTFS ?? If it depends on which OS, I have Win XP sp2. I know NTFS is better for security and for saving files 2GB or larger. I am more concerned about read/write speeds. The majority of the files I plan on saving are word docs, mp3 music, and jpegs. Thanks to those who can tell me the answer 92. fredjupiter said on : February 25th, 2010 at 1:26 pm Works great, easy to do. txs 93. craig said on : March 2nd, 2010 at 12:59 am If I format the card, will I be able to save the pics currently on it or will they be deleted? How can I
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save them? 94. Carl said on : March 8th, 2010 at 4:44 pm My USB stick is write protected how Im going to unprotect it? 95. Redsnapper said on : March 13th, 2010 at 3:00 pm Brilliant! Thank you very much, this worked for me. I have a 16 GB USB stick and it didnt take long to convert it to NTFS. 96. Mnica said on : March 15th, 2010 at 12:03 pm I cannot format my flash drive U-Tech 2.0G. Just gives me a message saying that my pen drive is write protected. Nor can I delete anything from it. Help me solve this problem? 97. Dr. Freaky said on : March 21st, 2010 at 8:43 pm Dale M Amazing. It worked. For those needing to format a RAW USB drive, use the utility in #64. You can pretend that you know Chinese (not downloading the language plug-in) and just allow the software to do its thing. Thanks Dale M. 98. brayan said on : March 24th, 2010 at 12:59 pm I cannot format my 250 GB USB drive, I keep getting an error. What can I do? 99. Phr3dd said on : March 24th, 2010 at 2:31 pm RE #85 & #97 commenting on #64 I purchased a Sony VAIO 64GB knowing that it was a fake, but at $10 for 32GB it was still a bargain. As delivered, it was only able to offer 4GB of its 32GB (the firmware was hacked to tell the OS that it was 64GB). NOTHING worked. I used the utility referred to in #64 and got my 32GB @ FAT32. Absolutely brainless point and click: 1) download the file (which IS in english, button on the right, same line as english description. 2) Install to default directory (DriveKey) 3) Navigate to Drivekey folder/directory, click on HPUSBFW (windows) and fill in the Volume name. Perfect! THANK YOU Dale M! 100. Geoff said on : March 25th, 2010 at 6:55 am Your a star my friend, saved me pulling the rest of my hair out!! What a pain it is to format a USB
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stick! 101. emre said on : March 25th, 2010 at 9:21 am You can NOT format a memory stick to NTFS in windows. You can however install ntfs-3g to a mac and do it there 102. alexpja said on : April 1st, 2010 at 8:02 pm emre: Yes you can format an USB drive to NTFS. I just did it using the command line version (Windows) suggested by some user in the comments. Worked perfectly, and now I am downloading the Ubuntu source code so I can you know, make my own distro 103. 5EBA5 said on : April 2nd, 2010 at 1:18 pm Lo acabo de hacer y si me dejo en una memoria de 16gb muchisimas gracias xD. antes no pidia copiarle un archivo de 7gb y ahora si me dejo.siiiiiiiiii ;D d;D 104. Havdn said on : April 4th, 2010 at 4:41 am Hello, i could format my 4 GIG USB-Stick without any problems and now im still able to use it. I cant understand your problems.:) Bye 105. eric ragsdale said on : April 9th, 2010 at 9:13 pm i have a 16g pny usb flash drive.. i just bought it so i could out my music on it and use it in my truck ( kenwood cd player with usb input.. when i insert the flash drive it says reading, then it says no music files found on the device can someone, anyone please try and give me a solution to this problem????? i know the cd players will read them because a friend of mine has the same deck and his works.. but unfortunately he is out of town 106. Qain said on : May 4th, 2010 at 2:16 am Hi, I tried the original way described here, and it is working for all of mine 4 USB sticks with XP Pro SP2. No problem reformating after NTFS back to FAT32. Thank you a lot, now I just hope, my LCD will read NFTS ;*) Qain 107. lee said on : May 7th, 2010 at 6:30 am
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Hi I have a 8g USB flash drive and it will not format it all ways says write protceted how do i get this turned off so i can format it.. im using vista. thanks 108. Dave said on : May 15th, 2010 at 7:07 am All understood, but, with a USB drive formatted in FAT32, why does the PC respond with Drive Full when you try to write to it with a file larger than 4GB? The only way I can get a large file onto the the USB drive is by formating it with NTFS. 109. mel said on : May 17th, 2010 at 12:18 pm Thanks for the quick formatting tip, I owe you one! 110. Kale said on : May 17th, 2010 at 6:16 pm Awesome! Converted my USB drive to NTFS in a jiffy! 111. Rayan said on : May 25th, 2010 at 8:41 am Hi Guyz! I have 32 gb kingston pen drive. I cannot complete the format. It shows Windows was unable to complete the format. Any one know how to solve the problem pls help me. 112. Jitka said on : May 25th, 2010 at 9:38 am Ok good but what if there is already a certificate on the USB which cannot be removed or deleted? 113. scramjet said on : June 7th, 2010 at 12:43 pm Thank you very much for the clear instructions! I was able to format my USB stick with no problems. 114. lala said on : June 8th, 2010 at 6:34 am The HP utility works like a charm. Thanks, Dale! However, the link above no longer takes you to it, so I found it here: http://www.softpedia.com/progD.....23786.html If that link goes down, any future visitors should be able to find the tool by googling HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.
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115. Tedge said on : June 8th, 2010 at 6:56 pm Hi to all, I have a problem with my Cruzer micro(16gb), i bought it at eBay but i think its counterfeited. when i start using it for the first time it work properly, but when i ejected it and insert it again all the files inside my folders are corrupted and cant even show the file format. Need some help over here. is there some softwares to deal with this?? i even tried to format it as FAT32 in win7 and xp but still the same problem happens, i cant format it to NTFS either, Format not complete. HELP PLEASE!! email me please! temothy_slasher_16@yahoo.com 116. Mark said on : June 9th, 2010 at 2:52 pm Thanks! Solved my frustrating problem. 117. Rizal1304 said on : June 14th, 2010 at 9:15 pm Thanks a lot.. really worksI can now secure folders on my USB drive since its in NTFS format. 118. Alex deLarge said on : June 19th, 2010 at 5:19 pm I originally tried converting my 32gb FAT32 USB drive with HP USB Storage Format Tool (the link Dale M gave), but it fails at the very end. It left my stick as RAW and now I cant use it at all. Im trying the command line process now, but I dont have high hopes for it. Any other suggestions? Im attempting to make a bootable USB with Windows XP on it. Do I HAVE to use NTFS for that? 119. Lum said on : July 11th, 2010 at 3:41 am Dear Sir / Madam, I am using Sony Storage Device USB 8 GB. When I try to open it, I get the following RUNDLL Error Loading .\dx.dll the specified module could not be found. I tied to scan for a virus but a virus was not detected. What should I do to open the USB? Please assist. 120. roxannejoie said on : July 16th, 2010 at 8:52 pm Hi. I tried it, but it still doesnt work. I have a 8GB Sandisk micro SD and its not working. It needs to be formatted, but it cant be formatted. It says that Windows is unable to complete the format and the device cannot be formatted.
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I tried the instructions above but there is no options in the capacity. Please help me. I really appreciate all the help. 121. gab said on : September 1st, 2010 at 4:24 am hi i have a kingston 2gb usb drive. Im having trouble formatting it. tried everything but a message appears it cannot be formatted its RAW and cant format it to ntfs, fat, or even fat32, even exfat. could somebody help me please 122. Clark said on : October 25th, 2010 at 1:38 am Also, versions of Windows older than 2000 cannot read NTFS file systems Windows NT 3.1, 3.51 and 4.0 would all like a word with you. 123. Wyzzy said on : October 25th, 2010 at 11:06 am Yes it works for my flash drive! TY 124. saki said on : November 3rd, 2010 at 12:16 am Hi! umm.. does this work for memory sticks too? my memory stick wont read. and it wont format either. 125. enzo said on : January 28th, 2011 at 10:40 am Sir, can you tell why my 2gb memory card became 126kb only after I formatted it on a computer? What can I do to change it back to a 2gb capacity memory card? Thanks in advance! Sorry for the off-topic question. 126. als said on : July 15th, 2011 at 1:45 pm Kiki. As I know this command works perfectly (even without need to delete your files) only in XP with at least SP2 or higher. I doubt that it would work in Vista or 7. Pingbacks 1. How to format external hard drive to FAT32 in Windows Says: [...] I was recently trying to format my 1 TB MyBook external hard drive in Windows XP to FAT32 instead of the overly forced-upon NTFS format. Why? Well because I needed to connect it to a NAS device and the NTFS permissions were causing the NAS not to be able to access the drive. Simple
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solution is to use FAT32, no security, no problems. Though its sometimes useful to format a USB drive in NTFS format. [...] Pingbacks 2. How to encrypt your USB flash drive Says: [...] I have already written a post on how to format a USB drive in NTFS format, which walks you through the process step by [...]
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How To Format USB Drive and Memory Stick With NTFS

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