![]() Once it's done, your USB drive should be formatted to use the FAT32 file system. You can leave the rest of the options alone. ![]() Also, feel free to rename the USB drive whatever you'd like: In the window that pops up, ensure that "FAT32" is selected. Next, right-click on the drive on the left hand side of the File Explorer window and click "Format": With that out of the way, plug your USB drive into your computer and open Windows File Explorer. If your USB drive is larger than 32 GB, check out one of the later methods. How to use Windows File Explorer to format a USB drive to FAT32Ī quick note about this method: it only works on USB flash drives that are less that 32 GB. ![]() In fact, make two backups, and keep one on a remote service like Google Drive or Dropbox.įormatting a drive will delete all of the data that's currently on it. Important note: Before you format a drive, make sure that you backup all of your important files. If you're sure you want to go with FAT32, here's how to format a storage drive on Windows 10. But you'd need to be sure that none of those files are greater than 4 GB. For example, if you need to boot up an old computer, maybe with a different operating system, and backup some of its files. These days, the only reason why you'd choose to format a drive to FAT32 is for compatibility. Also, it's a little more difficult to format a drive larger than 32 GB to FAT32 on Windows 10. On the other hand, FAT32's max file size of 4 GB is almost nothing now that phones can record 4K videos. (But it would be nice to have a 128 PB USB drive, wouldn't it?) Note that the maximum drive and file size of NTFS and ExFAT is so large that there's basically no limit. ** 1 exabyte is about 1 million terabytes * 1 petabyte is about 1 thousand terabytes However, though FAT32 is well supported, its maximum drive and file size is severely limited when compared to newer formats like NTFS and ExFAT: Meanwhile, macOS can only read NTFS drives, and you would need to install third-party software to write back to the drive. Every major operating system will allow you to read and write from a USB flash drive that's formatted to FAT32. Of those three common formats, FAT32 is the oldest and most widely supported. Some of the most common file system formats for portable storage devices are FAT32, NTFS, and ExFAT. What's a file system?Ī file system is a standardized way of organizing data on a computer storage device like a flash drive or HDD.Ī file system divides a storage device into virtual compartments, almost like a wall of post office boxes, and keeps track of all the information that gets stored in each box. In this article we'll go over what a file system is, the FAT32 standard, and several ways to format a storage device to FAT32 on Windows 10. We recommend it to anyone who uses flash drives.If you need to format a USB flash drive, HDD, SDD, or some other form of storage to FAT32, you've come to the right place. HP's little tool is the USB flash drive tool that could, bringing enhanced power and capability to your Windows system at no cost. We then moved the data back to the newly reformatted drive, ejected it, reinserted it, and verified that everything was in order, including our portable apps. Clicking Close called up a small dialog with detailed information about the drive. We allowed it to proceed, and it formatted the drive in seconds. We clicked Start, and a pop-up warned us all data on the drive would be lost. We chose to reformat it in NTFS and enable compression. HP USB immediately identified it and its file type, FAT. We moved the data off of an older 1GB flash drive and inserted the drive in an open USB port. Other than Start and Close buttons, that's it, not even a Help file, though this tool is easy enough to figure out without one. This compact tool has an equally compact interface, an efficient little dialog with selections for Device and File system, and an entry field for Volume label, and check boxes for format options, including the ability to create a bootable DOS start-up disk using either internal system files or files at a location you can specify. Hewlett-Packard's USB Disk Storage Format Tool can quickly and thoroughly format virtually any USB flash drive in a wide range of file systems as well as create bootable USB media. You can even boot from flash drives, just like the old floppies, which, together with portability, universal compatibility, and enough space to host useful tools, makes them ideal recovery devices. USB flash drives are this century's floppies, holding everything from personal and medical information to music and pictures and even secure data, with the added advantage of being small and rugged enough for keychain duty.
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