NTFS USB drive - can I reformat?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wolverine in Michigan
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Wolverine in Michigan

I have a usb drive formatted NTFS attached to pc using Vista HP. Can
usb drive this be reformatted and still work afterward? I know the
files will be lost. I know there used to be a problem about
reformatting NTFS drives.

Thanks
 
Wolverine in Michigan said:
I have a usb drive formatted NTFS attached to pc using Vista HP. Can usb
drive this be reformatted and still work afterward?
Yes.

I know the files will be lost. I know there used to be a problem about
reformatting NTFS drives.
Click to expand...

Not that I've ever heard of.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Anytime.
 
I have a usb drive formatted NTFS attached to pc using Vista HP.  Can
usb drive this be reformatted and still work afterward?   I know the
files will be lost.  I know there used to be a problem about
reformatting NTFS drives.

Thanks
Click to expand...

The only problems formatting hard drives (any) is the fact that
starting with XP we can not create FAT32 hard drive "partitions" in
excess of 32 GB natively with Windows Disk Management.
 
Wolverine said:
I have a usb drive formatted NTFS attached to pc using Vista HP. Can
usb drive this be reformatted and still work afterward? I know the
files will be lost.

Yes.


I know there used to be a problem about
reformatting NTFS drives.
Click to expand...


Really? This is the first time I've ever heard any such claim, in 14
years of supporting computers using the NTFS file system. Where'd you
get your information?


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smlunatick said:
The only problems formatting hard drives (any) is the fact that
starting with XP we can not create FAT32 hard drive "partitions" in
excess of 32 GB natively with Windows Disk Management.
Click to expand...

Actually FAT32 support came to be with Windows 2000 (NT could only
handle FAT16 & NTFS) and Windows 2000 too was limited to formating FAT32
volumes to a maximum size of 32GB. This was not a technical inability
of Windows 2000, it's was a limit imposed to reduce or curb the use of
inefficient FAT32 volumes on enterprise class workstations.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.07.windowsconfidential.aspx
Windows Confidential A Brief and Incomplete History of FAT32

Note that although Windows 2000/XP are limited in the size of the FAT32
volume that they can format they can mount any size FAT32 disks prepared
by other operating systems.

John
 
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