Can't format USB drive in NTFS format

Anonymous
2010-06-07T17:17:06+00:00

Can't format USB drive in windows 7

I recently bought a kingston 64GBUSB flash drive.  This works fine but I need to  format it in NTFS and windows format says it can't complete the format. Can anyone help?  answer here or at *** Email address is removed for privacy ***.  Thank ahead of time.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2010-06-08T16:13:23+00:00

Hi,

By default, Windows provides the option to format a USB flash drive with FAT or FAT32 file systems only, but not with  NTFS (New Technology****File System.)

The reason behind this is that there are some disadvantages of NTFS usage in this case. First of all, the speed of saving on the flash drive decreases (but the speed of reading data from the drive is the same), and you have to be more careful to always remove the USB flash drive safely.

However, you can still format the Flash Drive in the NTFS format. Follow these steps for the same.

1.      Insert the USB flash drive into the USB port.

2.      Click Start, type devmgmt.msc in the Search textbox and press  Enter.

3.      Find Disk Drives and expand it.

4.      Find the USB flash drive you want to format, and double-click it. It opens the  Properties dialog box.

5.      Click Policies tab.

6.      By default, the  Optimize for quick removal option selected, switch it to Optimize for performance and then pressOK.

7.      Now open  Computer. Right click on the USB Flash Drive and select Format. The Format dialog box now appears.

8.      Select NTFS in the File System field.

9.      Press Start and wait while the process will be completed.

10.   Now your USB Flash Drive is formatted with NTFS format.

Regards,

Syed N – Microsoft Support

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-02-19T16:59:47+00:00

    Its not working here :(

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-01-13T16:43:52+00:00

    I just tried doing this and it still didn't work.  I'm getting an error saying "Windows can't format this drive."  

    There was confidential data on the stick so we originally wiped it and restored factory defaults.  But now the drives are inoperable.  thanks for your assistance.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-11-10T15:35:18+00:00

    I read on forum I could use a thumbdrive to backup my new laptop. The only stipulation was to reformat to NTFS. I followed the information above, but for some reason was unable to create the backup. (Had to resort to an external hard drive or DVD's) Anyhow I have completed my backup by other means. Now I have a problem with the thumbdrive as being unusable for anything else. Can someone advise on how I can reverse the procedure above to original FAT?

    I tried to follow same procedure above, but does not show up on "COMPUTER" as drive yet does show up in the hardware though.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-06-08T16:03:18+00:00

    Hi Christpher1965,

    Please see the following article with some helpful information:

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Convert-a-hard-disk-or-partition-to-NTFS-format

    Hope this helps!

    Debra

    Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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