A1) In most Windows systems while formatting a USB Stick/Flash Drive, file system choices are presented to you – NTFS, FAT, FAT32 or exFAT. FAT or FAT 32 file system is the option selected by default for formatting a USB flash drive. The two ways in which you can format your USB Flash Drive are:
Sometimes you need to format (completely erase) an USB stick to restore it to its full capacity. Here's how to format an USB stick on a Mac. Get the full storage space of your USB back. USB Disk Storage Format Tool for Mac OS X. USB Disk Storage Format Tool by Authorsoft Corporation is a free utility that allows you to easily format your USB flash drives. The release date of USB Disk Storage Format Tool for Mac is unknown and we cannot say for sure if.
USB flash drives are the little stick-like devices that we carry along in our pockets as portable external storage. But these little devices pack quite a punch; they can double up as your mobile movie library, photo collection, backup drive, OS boot volume, or just a way to transfer stuff from one computer to another. Each time you wish to use them for a unique purpose, it requires cleaning them and sometimes even formatting them to a file system suited to the target environment. Formatting is also a good way to rid the memory stick of unwanted errors or virus/malware programs.
One important thing to remember is always taking a backup of your data before beginning the format procedure.
When it comes to formatting a USB drive, which format should you go for – FAT or NTFS? Or any other? Best web page design app for mac. Moreover, how can you change the format of your USB drive from FAT to NTFS to exFAT or FAT32? Let’s answer these questions one at a time.
Which file system should I choose for formatting my USB?
When it comes to formatting a USB drive, which format should you go for – FAT or NTFS? Or any other? Moreover, how can you change the format size of your USB drive from FAT to NTFS to exFAT or FAT32? Let’s answer these questions one at a time.
In most Windows systems, while formatting a USB 4 file system choices are presented to you – NTFS, FAT, FAT32 or exFAT. You should choose one that suits your USB purpose as well as target environment. Additionally, here are the benefits of each of these file systems to help you make your choice.
Benefits of NTFS file system
If you select NTFS file system, you get:
Benefits of FAT / FAT32 file system
Note: For USB flash drives with capacity larger than 32GB, FAT / FAT32 formatting option is not available.
If you select FAT or FAT32 file system:
Benefits of exFAT file system
If you select exFAT file system, you get:
So if you’re USB flash drive which has a capacity greater than 32GB, you should select NTFS or exFAT. Other than that, you should choose the format that suits your work. For example, if you use the USB on multiple operating systems, going for FAT would be better.
How to format USB to FAT / FAT32 / NTFS / exFAT using Windows Explorer?
FAT or FAT 32 file system is the option selected by default for formatting a USB flash drive on Windows XP. FAT or FAT32 is also the default file system most music players in cars recognise. So if on plugging your USB into your car’s music player you’ve faced an error saying – “cannot read”, check its file system and change it.
Here’s the procedure to format USB to NTFS / FAT / FAT32 / exFAT:
Step 1: Plug in the memory stick into your computer and allow it to be detected. Once it is recognised, you should see an Autoplay dialogue box pop up asking you to choose the next action. If it doesn’t appear, you can open My Computer and see if the USB is detected as a newly mounted volume. You can also find the USB under Disk Drives in Device Manager (right-click on My Computer -> Manage).
Step 2: Right-click on the USB drive shown in My Computer and select “Format”. This will open a dialogue box displaying the formatting options.
Step 3: Select the desired file system from NTFS, FAT, FAT32 or exFAT from the “File System” drop-down, then punch in the name that you wish to assign to the USB drive under “Volume label” and also select a “Format option”.
Step 4: Once you’ve made sure all options are correct, and you have a backup of the important data on the USB, click on “Start” to initiate the process. When prompted, click on “Ok” to confirm that you wish to erase the data on the drive and format it.
How to format USB to NTFS / exFAT / FAT / FAT32 using Command Prompt?
Step 1: Plug in the memory stick into your computer and allow it to be detected.
Step 2: Open Command Prompt (Start -> Accessories -> Command Prompt or Start -> Run -> type “cmd” -> Enter)
Step 3 : Supposing your USB drive is assigned the letter “E”: type the following command in the Command Prompt:
For FAT: format E: /fs:FAT
For FAT32: format E: /fs:FAT32 For NTFS: format E: /fs:NTFS For exFAT: format E: /fs:EXFAT
Step 4 : When prompted, press Y (for Yes) or N (for No) to continue or stop the formatting.
Things to remember when formatting to NTFS
When formatting to NTFS file system, you need to remember to enable the “removal policy” of the USB to the “better performance” option. Here’s how to do this:
You have formatted your USB drive successfully! Great! Now What if you want to again get back your precious photos, audios or videos???
The best possible solution to go for will be to download and run Stellar Photo Recovery Software. The addedbenefit of keeping Stellar Photo Recovery Software in your system is that you can take a backup of your entire drive. The top menu bar of the main screen section of the software includes a ‘Create Image‘ option which is used to create an image of your entire drive. This image can be used as a backup for recovering data at a later stage. To recover back your multimedia files, if lost accidentally, you can try the demo version of the software absolutely free:
Final Words
Hope our pointers above will help you the next time you need to format your memory stick. Always remember to backup your data before beginning the formatting process and choose a file system that suits your requirement. However, if you want to recover data from a corrupt or inaccessible USB drive, read our next post. USB flash drive formatting problems
'When I tried to format my 4 GB SanDisk USB pen drive, I got the message saying the disk was write protected. Is there any USB format tool can remove the write protection?'
'I just bought an 8GB Kingston data traveler for backup. But I got the error message saying 'cannot format USB drive' when I tried to reformat the USB drive. What can I do?'
'I encountered the disk not formatted error on my 64GB Toshiba flash drive. Windows was unable to complete the format. Is there any way that I can use to format my USB flash drive for reuse successfully?'
Usb Disk Storage Format Tool For Windows 7![]()
'My SanDisk USB drive used to be originally 8GB when I bought it. But now the capacity only shows 250MB. How do I fix my USB drive to restore its original 8GB size back?'
What is the best USB flash drive formatting tool
USB cannot format, USB drive is write protected, USB format error, USB becomes raw, and more are the common issues you might encounter when you use a USB flash drive. At this moment, you have to format your USB flash drive to fix the problem. And it's likely that you can not do it with the Windows built-in disk management tool. That's when you need to find a third-party USB formatting tool for help. Which one is the best?
In fact, there are many formatting tools for USB flash drive like HP USB Disk Storage Formatting Tool, MMC Formatting tool, Panasonic SD Formatting Tool, Urescue Formatting Tool, SD formatting software, etc. But here we would like to recommend you EaseUS partition software for its powerful formatting capacity and easy-to-use features. It allows to format a USB flash drive from Sandisk, Kingston, Panasonic, Lexar, Samsung, Sony, etc easily in all complex cases, for example, to format write-protected USB flash drive, format USB drive back to the original size, format USB drive to FAT32 or NTFS, and more. Now you can try the following guide to format your USB drive in simple steps. (Formatting will delete all data on the USB flash drive, back up all your files before starting the process.)
How to format your USB flash drive with EaseUS USB formatting tool:
Step 1: Select the USB drive to format.
Connect the USB drive or pen drive to your computer. Download and launch EaseUS partition software. Right-click the USB drive you intend to format and choose 'Format'.
Step 2: Set the drive letter and file system.
Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click 'OK'.
Step 3: Check the warning box.Usb Disk Storage Format Tool For Mac Os
Click 'OK' if you see the Warning window. If you have important data on it, back up the data in advance.
Usb Disk Storage Format Tool For MacStep 4: Apply the changes.Usb Flash Drive Format Tool
Click the 'Execute operation' button first, and then click 'Apply' to format the USB drive.
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