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formatting flash drive


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#1
mcintire21

mcintire21

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I received a 16GB flash drive as a gift, it's not branded. I want reformat to NFTS. When I plug it in is shows up but doesn't give me the option to format to nfts. I'm running windows xp and I did go to the policies tab and changed it to optimize for performance. I tried reformatting under disk management and the cmd prompt. Any suggestions.

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#2
Major Payne

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I think the reason why you can't reformat it to NFTS is because the file system is OS specific. FAT is more universal so changing your Flash from one computer to another doesn't cause problems.

"FAT is still in use today as the preferred file system for floppy drive media and portable, high capacity storage devices like flash drives."
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#3
Neil Jones

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Please don't format your pen drive to NTFS. It will wear out quicker. The drive is FAT32 for a reason.
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#4
mcintire21

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Are there flash drives out there that cant be formatted to ntfs?
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#5
Neil Jones

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Technically you can format the drive whatever you like. FAT32 is the standard and is the most compatible across the mainstream operating systems - Windows 98 through to Win 7 can read it, most versions of Linux can read it, Macs can read it...
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