Guest PT Posted September 20, 2007 Posted September 20, 2007 Preamble: My computer uses Windows XP Home and has several drives appearing in My Computer. The main hard drive includes two partitions, which were created by Compaq (the computer manufacturer). The C: drive is the main drive containing the operating system as well as all programs and data files. The D: drive is apparently a backup of the operating system, drivers and other stuff which is to be used by Compaq to fix problems. I also have two external drives: an Iomega hard drive L:, and a small USB plug-in jump drive (K:). Here's what properties shows about the drive file systems: C: NTFS D: FAT32 K: NTFS L: NTFS Now the question: I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come pre-formatted as FAT32. Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? -- PT
Guest JS Posted September 20, 2007 Posted September 20, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive To format a drive go to Disk Management on your Windows PC, (right click on the My Computer icon, then select the Manage option, then in the Computer Management window select Disk Management). For more details on formatting see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/en-us JS "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote in message news:e%23glsl9%23HHA.4476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl... > Preamble: > > My computer uses Windows XP Home and has several drives appearing in My > Computer. The main hard drive includes two partitions, which were created > by Compaq (the computer manufacturer). The C: drive is the main drive > containing the operating system as well as all programs and data files. > The D: drive is apparently a backup of the operating system, drivers and > other stuff which is to be used by Compaq to fix problems. > > I also have two external drives: an Iomega hard drive L:, and a small USB > plug-in jump drive (K:). > > Here's what properties shows about the drive file systems: > > C: NTFS > D: FAT32 > K: NTFS > L: NTFS > > Now the question: > > I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come > pre-formatted as FAT32. > Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? > -- > > PT >
Guest Anonymous Posted September 20, 2007 Posted September 20, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive I certainly have no fact to back this up, but I suspect the thumb drive is formatted to the lowest common denominator format. By virtue of it's widely portable nature, the possibility you might want access with a system not having NTFS support is high(at least at this point in time). Regarding the re-format, I'd think that would be done just as any other HD re-format was accomplished, with a utility for that purpose. "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote in message news:e%23glsl9%23HHA.4476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl... > Preamble: > > My computer uses Windows XP Home and has several drives appearing in My > Computer. The main hard drive includes two partitions, which were created > by Compaq (the computer manufacturer). The C: drive is the main drive > containing the operating system as well as all programs and data files. > The D: drive is apparently a backup of the operating system, drivers and > other stuff which is to be used by Compaq to fix problems. > > I also have two external drives: an Iomega hard drive L:, and a small USB > plug-in jump drive (K:). > > Here's what properties shows about the drive file systems: > > C: NTFS > D: FAT32 > K: NTFS > L: NTFS > > Now the question: > > I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come > pre-formatted as FAT32. > Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? > -- > > PT >
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted September 21, 2007 Posted September 21, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:55:56 -0700, "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote: > I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come > pre-formatted as FAT32. > Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? Probably not, but how are you planning to use them? For what purpose? -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest PT Posted September 21, 2007 Posted September 21, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive I just plan to se it for backup and/or transport of files between computers. If files on the FAT32 formatted jump drive can be read by an NTFS formatted drive computer, I'd have no reason to reformat the jump drive.. FWIW, I tried to review the procedure for the reformat using Disk Management | management. The options for my external HD were FAT32 and NTFS. But for the jump drive, the only two options were FAT and FAT32. Why the difference? -- PT "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in message news:rc36f3tp5nria7h0lfp0uf0lvo8p1asqvo@4ax.com... > On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:55:56 -0700, "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote: > >> I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come >> pre-formatted as FAT32. >> Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? > > > Probably not, but how are you planning to use them? For what purpose? > > -- > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User > Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest jimshoe2112 Posted September 21, 2007 Posted September 21, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive NTFS is supposedly better: "NTFS replaced Microsoft's previous FAT file system, used in MS-DOS and early versions of Windows. NTFS has several improvements over FAT and HPFS (High Performance File System) such as improved support for metadata and the use of advanced data structures to improve performance, reliability, and disk space utilization plus additional extensions such as security access control lists and file system journaling." (Wikipedia.com, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS) You could reformat if you wanted, but it probably wouldn't work on older systems like '98 or below. "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote: > On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:55:56 -0700, "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote: > > > I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come > > pre-formatted as FAT32. > > Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? > > > Probably not, but how are you planning to use them? For what purpose? > > -- > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User > Please Reply to the Newsgroup >
Guest JS Posted September 21, 2007 Posted September 21, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive See this info to either convert to NTFS or Format NTFS: http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0ba13d3b725d362a038903c72b4f82df&threadid=5910 JS "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote in message news:%23mGxd9%23%23HHA.3916@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... >I just plan to se it for backup and/or transport of files between >computers. If files on the FAT32 formatted jump drive can be read by an >NTFS formatted drive computer, I'd have no reason to reformat the jump >drive.. > > FWIW, I tried to review the procedure for the reformat using Disk > Management | management. The options for my external HD were FAT32 and > NTFS. But for the jump drive, the only two options were FAT and FAT32. > Why the difference? > > -- > > PT > "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in message > news:rc36f3tp5nria7h0lfp0uf0lvo8p1asqvo@4ax.com... >> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:55:56 -0700, "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote: >> >>> I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come >>> pre-formatted as FAT32. >>> Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? >> >> >> Probably not, but how are you planning to use them? For what purpose? >> >> -- >> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User >> Please Reply to the Newsgroup > >
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted September 21, 2007 Posted September 21, 2007 Re: Formatting a new drive On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:33:00 -0700, "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote: > I just plan to se it for backup and/or transport of files between computers. Then it doesn't matter much. > If files on the FAT32 formatted jump drive can be read by an NTFS formatted > drive computer, No problem at all. There's really no such thing as "an NTFS formatted drive computer." Windows XP can use any and all combinations of FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12, as well as NTFS. That means you can have multiple internal drives as well as external ones with different file systems. It even means you can have multiple partitions on a single physical drive with different file systems. > I'd have no reason to reformat the jump drive.. > > FWIW, I tried to review the procedure for the reformat using Disk Management > | management. The options for my external HD were FAT32 and NTFS. But for > the jump drive, the only two options were FAT and FAT32. Why the > difference? > > -- > > PT > "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in message > news:rc36f3tp5nria7h0lfp0uf0lvo8p1asqvo@4ax.com... > > On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:55:56 -0700, "PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote: > > > >> I just bought a couple of spare jump drives. They apparently come > >> pre-formatted as FAT32. > >> Is there any reason to reformat them as NTFS? If so, how would I do so? > > > > > > Probably not, but how are you planning to use them? For what purpose? > > > > -- > > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User > > Please Reply to the Newsgroup > -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User Please Reply to the Newsgroup
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