6 replies to this topic

[mountaintree16]

I've seen several posts on the forum asking about or talking about formatting a usb flash/thumb drive. (I always have called it a thumb drive). I didn't know that this was possible until I saw these posts.

So my questions are,

under what circumstances would you want and.or need to format a usb drive?

and how do you format a usb drive?

Any other information about this?

[calintexas]

You could want to reformat because it's a simple way to clean off malware, or the dirve is currently one of the FAT's and you want it to be NTFS (probably to allow larger file sizes). AdvancedSetup has a "how to format a thumb drive" post right here in River City: http://www.malwareby...?showtopic=4580

[mountaintree16]

@ calintexas

Thank you for your reply

Hmm, what is a FAT's vs a NTFS though? I don't know what they mean

Thank you also for the link to AdvancedSetup's post, I am reading it now

[AdvancedSetup]

Well if you really have a hankering to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

[mountaintree16]

Thanks Ron.

I'll read up on that

So am I right in saying that the NTFS is for smaller capacity drives and FATS is for larger capacity drives?

edit I think I got that backwards I based that off of the link that calintexas posted to me, and I read it wrong.

[YoKenny1]

One problem I have found with formatting a Flash drive with NTFS is that it can't be removed with Safely Remove Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/236841-3...remove-hardware

I only have files that are less than 4GB that I want to have there and the biggest Fash drive I have at the moment is 2GB.

I love my Sony NWZ-B105F:
http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/sony-n...7-32593879.html

I use Autorun Eater:
http://oldmcdonald.wordpress.com/2009/06/0...torun-eater-v24

Autorun Eater FAQ:
http://oldmcdonald.w...asked-questions

[mountaintree16]

@ YoKenny1

Thanks for all the info and links, I'll read up on it when I have a moment