File Format for USB Flash pens

[MorseLady]

I have just bought a ByteStor 512MB USB Flash device and am very pleased with it, auto set up first time in XP and have dropped some backup essential settings etc on it! Bit like taking my life everywhere with me now. I am wearing it round my neck, real cool these devices

I notice that it is formatted in FAT but what I cannot find out from the instructions is whether USB Flash drives can be reformatted in NTFS? I do not want to try without checking because I remember trying to reformat one of my xD camera cards to FAT32 in my card reader and having to reverse the process to get the card to be recognised by my camera as these cards also appear to use FAT as default.

The instructions for the USB Flash device say the device is partitioned with 1.44MB floppy and the rest is the main drive but I cannot see these partitions in Disk Management just one primary removable drive.

[Platypus]

Windows XP will not format USB mass storage devices to NTFS, although I gather Win2000 would. However removable devices are not normally formatted to NTFS, partly because of the large loss of space to the File Table, but more importantly because NTFS does not flush data immediately to the disk, so there is a high possibility of data loss if the drive is removed without using the correct Safe Removal procedure.

Many non-PC devices like cameras do not understand FAT32, so cards tend to be formatted as FAT16, or FAT12 for very small capacities.

[MorseLady]

Windows XP will not format USB mass storage devices to NTFS, although I gather Win2000 would. However removable devices are not normally formatted to NTFS, partly because of the large loss of space to the File Table, but more importantly because NTFS does not flush data immediately to the disk, so there is a high possibility of data loss if the drive is removed without using the correct Safe Removal procedure.

Many non-PC devices like cameras do not understand FAT32, so cards tend to be formatted as FAT16, or FAT12 for very small capacities.

Thank you, Platypus, that resolves my query very nicely

[Platypus]

Glad to oblige.

[kpataska]

Windows XP will not format USB mass storage devices to NTFS, although I gather Win2000 would. However removable devices are not normally formatted to NTFS, partly because of the large loss of space to the File Table, but more importantly because NTFS does not flush data immediately to the disk, so there is a high possibility of data loss if the drive is removed without using the correct Safe Removal procedure.

Many non-PC devices like cameras do not understand FAT32, so cards tend to be formatted as FAT16, or FAT12 for very small capacities.

All USB mass storage devices of any format or flavor are ALL FAT16. They cannot be reformatted to another filesystem, as they are engineered to be FAT16 and nothing else.

FAT16 is an old enough standard that all OSs understand it. That is why it is used - commonality.

Don't mess with what works!

Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s

[Platypus]

All USB mass storage devices of any format or flavor are ALL FAT16.

I probably would have noticed if my 40GB USB external HDD was divided into twenty 2GB FAT16 partitions...

They cannot be reformatted to another filesystem, as they are engineered to be FAT16 and nothing else.

As alread said, Win2000 will format a USB Flash Drive to NTFS. XP would too by default up until Beta2. Testers reported corrupting drives by unsafe removal, so it was defaulted to FAT.

Instructions for enabling NTFS formatting for USB drives in XP:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...TNGP10.phx.gbl

http://www.damianm.co.uk/code/10/article.aspx

[jacobrich]

I probably would have noticed if my 40GB USB external HDD was divided into twenty 2GB FAT16 partitions...



As alread said, Win2000 will format a USB Flash Drive to NTFS. XP would too by default up until Beta2. Testers reported corrupting drives by unsafe removal, so it was defaulted to FAT.

Instructions for enabling NTFS formatting for USB drives in XP:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...TNGP10.phx.gbl

http://www.damianm.co.uk/code/10/article.aspx

Can USB hard drives be formatted with NTFS? I want to get an extrenal drive to use with Windows Back-Up (the resulting *.bkf file is far larger than the 4 gig limit imposed by FAT32)

Does Windows know that a given device is a memory stick and not a hard drive? I am thinking that Microsoft must have decided that Windows should handle hard drives and flash mem. sticks differently, is that true?

I am asking this because I read elsewhere that XP will not format USB mass storage devices with NTFS... would USB hard drives fall under this category?

[TechZ]

I format my External USB Drive (120gb) with NTFS, it works fine, I also have 2 Flash Drives, and they are both FAT32, they work fine too.

[Platypus]

Can USB hard drives be formatted with NTFS?

Certainly, as TechZ has confirmed, XP's default setting is to not use NTFS, but this can be changed:

Instructions for enabling NTFS formatting for USB drives in XP:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...TNGP10.phx.gbl

http://www.damianm.co.uk/code/10/article.aspx

XP wants partitions larger than 32GB to be NTFS anyway, but once a partition exists, XP will accept whatever form it is presented with. As TechZ has confirmed, it works quite OK, in the same way that XP will happily work with a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB once it is created.

I've only just converted my own system to XP, so I can't comment directly from experience yet, and do not wish to re-format my USB drive to NTFS to experiment. But the difference is in the default setting for lazy writes as covered in the two links, so if a removable drive is NTFS, and the Device Policy is set to Optimize for Performance, you should remember to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon before removing the drive to avoid possible data corruption.

[Archer]

Perhaps a clarification : solid state USB drives are normally FAT whilst external USB hard drives [SATA/IDE types] are normally FAT 32 or NTFS is that correct??

[Platypus]

Perhaps a clarification : solid state USB drives are normally FAT whilst external USB hard drives [SATA/IDE types] are normally FAT 32 or NTFS is that correct??

I haven't actually worked out what distinction is made between solid state drives and hard drives. When we're thinking FAT(12, 16), FAT32 and NTFS we mean a file system on a mountable drive, so at the moment I don't know if Windows cares (or knows) if it is solid state or not, or just fixed or removable. I wonder who knows for sure?

I think the conventions of format mainly follow the usual distinctions, mostly FAT for under 2GB so File Table doesn't steal too much space, FAT32 for larger sizes, NTFS for its respective advantages, so hard drives would automatically fall into the latter categories. Where flash cards are mounted as removable drives in card readers the file system is usually determined by the other device(s) they are used in eg my camera only reads the MMC in FAT, not FAT32.

[jacobrich]

I haven't actually worked out what distinction is made between solid state drives and hard drives. When we're thinking FAT(12, 16), FAT32 and NTFS we mean a file system on a mountable drive, so at the moment I don't know if Windows cares (or knows) if it is solid state or not, or just fixed or removable. I wonder who knows for sure?

I think the conventions of format mainly follow the usual distinctions, mostly FAT for under 2GB so File Table doesn't steal too much space, FAT32 for larger sizes, NTFS for its respective advantages, so hard drives would automatically fall into the latter categories. Where flash cards are mounted as removable drives in card readers the file system is usually determined by the other device(s) they are used in eg my camera only reads the MMC in FAT, not FAT32.

The USB hard drive I am considering is the FireFly 20Gig. Would XP let me format it with NTFS? It is under the 32Gig limit of FAT32, so that has me a little concerned... I am hoping that XP doesn't restrict me to FAT32.

[TechZ]

If its a proper HDD based (2.5"/3.5") its always better to go for NTFS, cause theyre always big drives, as compared to the tiny USB Flash Drives that are always FAT32, and I've only seen them go up to 1gb.

And since Flash Drives are mostly used on a variety of OS's they usually stick to FAT32, and because at that small size (capacity) I dont think the File System makes a truly huge difference.

jacobrich, I used a friends 20gb Seagate 2.5" HD in an enclosure and it was fine in NTFS.

Personally I think, XP has some kind of distinction between a proper HDD based and Flash based device, but probably on a very minute level.

[jacobrich]

If its a proper HDD based (2.5"/3.5") its always better to go for NTFS, cause theyre always big drives, as compared to the tiny USB Flash Drives that are always FAT32, and I've only seen them go up to 1gb.

And since Flash Drives are mostly used on a variety of OS's they usually stick to FAT32, and because at that small size (capacity) I dont think the File System makes a truly huge difference.

jacobrich, I used a friends 20gb Seagate 2.5" HD in an enclosure and it was fine in NTFS.

Personally I think, XP has some kind of distinction between a proper HDD based and Flash based device, but probably on a very minute level.

So, is it possible to format USB Hard Drives with NTFS without changing anything "behind the scenes" in Windows XP? Can they be reformatted with NTFS from the "My Computer" screen simply by right-clicking their icon and selecting format (and NTFS from the resulting drop-down)?

[TechZ]

yes. Thats how I did mine