Formatting a new drive

[PT]

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?

 

[JS]

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

 

[Anonymous]

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.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

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?

 

[PT]

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?

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[JS]

See this info to either convert to NTFS or Format NTFS:
http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0ba13d3b725d362a038903c72b4f82df&threadid=5910

JS

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?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

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?