Flash storage capacity has grown steadily in recent years. A few years ago, a running flash drive had a capacity of several hundred megabytes. Today, for the same money, you can buy a flash drive with a volume of 8-32 gigabytes. As a rule, a flash drive is sold already formatted. But what is the file system on the disk? Different file systems have different capabilities. For example, FAT-16 does not support large files. Windows will not be able to work with EXT-2. Therefore, sometimes there is nothing left but to change the file system on the flash drive to the most functional and frequently used one.
Necessary
Operating system Windows 2000 and higher
Instructions
Step 1
Create a temporary directory on your hard drive. The catalog can be created in any convenient way. The easiest way to do this is to use a file manager. In most file managers, the directory is created by pressing the F7 key. After pressing F7, you will be prompted for the name of the directory to be created. Enter your name. A directory with the same name must not exist in the current directory.
Step 2
Copy the entire contents of the flash drive to a temporary directory. Select all directories and files on the removable disk in the file manager. Press the F5 key or select the appropriate item from the menu. A dialog will appear indicating the target folder. In the dialog press the OK button, or press the Enter key. Wait for the end of the copying process.
Step 3
Open the disk format dialog. Right click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop. Select "Open" from the drop-down menu. Find your flash drive in the list of drives. Click on its icon with the right mouse button. Select "Format" from the menu that appears.
Step 4
Format the flash drive with the correct file system. In the disk formatting dialog, select the preferred file system type from the "File system" drop-down list. In the "Volume Label" field, specify the disk label. Click the "Start" button and wait for the formatting process to finish. Click the Close button.
Step 5
Copy the files from the temporary directory on your hard drive back to your flash drive. Open the previously created temporary directory in the file manager panel. Select all of its contents. In another pane, open your newly formatted flash drive. Go to the temporary directory panel. Press the F5 key. Confirm to start copying. Wait for the end of the copying process.
