Formatting the flash drive in NTFS. Practical tips for Windows XP users

In the past few years, flash memory has become several times more perfect and affordable at a price. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in that the lucky owners of flash drives nowadays are almost all users of personal computers. But not all of them know how to properly handle a drive, a mobile phone memory card, an MP3 player, a photo frame or a camera. And even more so, not everyone knows that it's best to format the flash drive in NTFS.

The NTFS file system has become popular in the last couple of years, with the advent of new versions of operating systems and faster hardware. Due to the fact that FAT (and its ideological continuation FAT32) remained the most popular file system for a long time. That's why almost all flash drives are formatted by default in this obsolete file system. For stable and faster operation with operating systems such as "Windows 7" and the already prepared "G8", any removable media should be attached to a newer and more popular file system. That's why formatting flash drives in NTFS in the modern world is actually a guarantee of stable and trouble-free operation of your portable device.

NTFS (literally stands for "file system of new technologies") is quite popular nowadays file system, replaced by obsolete FAT and FAT32. Everyone knows that many operating systems (for example, still very popular "Windows XP") do not allow formatting the USB flash drive in NTFS by default. But you can perform this simple operation in several ways, which will not cause difficulties even for novice users.

The easiest way to format a USB flash drive in NTFS in XP is to call the corresponding function from the context menu called Format. Since by default in this version of the "windows" this function is disabled, you must first "resolve" it. This is done quite simply. We go to the "Properties" of the computer and in the "Hardware" tab we call the "Device Manager" submenu with the left mouse click, and already from it we address to "Disk devices". Then we find our removable media among all the disks connected to the computer and double-click the "Policy" tab. In this menu, we find the item "Optimize for quick execution", click "OK", thereby saving your actions, and exit from there.

Now when you select "Format" you can perform this operation on the NTFS file system without any problems. And the formatting of the flash drive (NTFS will be one of the suggested options along with FAT32) will pass a little faster.

Another option for including such formatting is called conversion. This function is built into the operating system and does not require the installation of any additional programs. To format the USB flash drive in NTFS this way, go to the Start menu, click on the "Run" line and at the command line, type the following line:

Convert A: / fs: ntfs / nosecurity. / X, where A

- the letter of our removable disk. This option is more suitable for advanced users and those newcomers who are not afraid to experiment.

Formatting removable media in the NTFS file system can also be done using third-party programs. The most popular utility for this purpose is the "USB Disk Storage Format Tool" from the well-known company "HP". It is not difficult even for a novice user to understand such programs.

After you have already learned how to format to various file systems, do not forget about one more important thing: formatting completely destroys the data on your media! Therefore, do not forget to make a backup copy of all the information you are interested in on the flash drive before starting this procedure.