USB flash drive size problems
 

I have a Cruzer 4GB stick (FAT 32) and I have several portable apps on it.

The files are 2.04 GB (2,192,495,781 bytes) in size.

and the size on the stick is 2.70 GB (2,907,897,856 bytes).

thats nearly 65meg of wasted space.

One file was 3.5MB and on stick was 16.5meg.

I tried to convert to NTFS but that failed, and so I tried to format it but NTFS is not an option on the list.

Any ideas on what to do.

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

I had that problem a couple of years back and used this to enable NTFS on the drive

http://www.ntfs.com/quest22.htm

hope this helps off to bed now so i'll catch up tomorrow

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

I use Paragon HArd Disk manager but its overkill for one flash drive

---------- Post added at 23:50 ---------- Previous post was at 23:48 ----------

did you try

convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs


in cmd?

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

I tried that but when the system reboot it couldn't tell what the filing system on the drive was.

But martyh's link worked. and now the drive has more free space.

It it worth converting all flash drives to NTFS, as 9.99999% of computers see NTFS.

The only issue I would have with converting all my drives to NTFS is that my Xbox cannot see the NTFS drive, so I have left my media drive with FAT32.

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

try formatting that drive for the xbox in EXFat ,it is a FAT format that is recognized by xbox and allows larger file sizes and can be read by NTFS systems .My NAS drive is formatted in EXFAT and both xbox and pc's stream from that no problem

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

Would the EXFAT format stop the files from taking up excess space like FAT32 does.

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

yes ,it is a much more efficient format ,another format to choose would be EXT3 that can be read by xbox as well my 500gb buffallo NAS is formatted in that

handy link for you

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2801/...2_versus_ntfs/

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

Thanks again, I'll have to spend a couple of hours puting the HDD on to my other then reformat to exFAT, I'm glad that XP supports it.

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

[QUOTE=Hom3r;35216522]
It it worth converting all flash drives to NTFS, as 9.99999% of computers see NTFS.

QUOTE]

9.99999%? So just under 10% thats not many at all!

Sorry couldn't resist ;)

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

It doesn't sound like a FAT32 issue, as FAT32 should default to 4k clusters for up to 8GB volume size.

A 3.5MB file expanding to 16.5, now that is just wierd, sounds more like severe data corruption, or something wrong in the way it's copied, causing concatenation of multiple files.

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

My nets back up but for how long??

I have a HDD that I stupidly updated to NTFS, I tried to convert/format to exFAT but both failed, any ideas?

---------- Post added at 13:30 ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 ----------

any free converters

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

right I used a WD tool to convert back to FAT32.

Convert will not do exFAT, I trried to format it as exFAT but it fails will the message below.

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

Well sometimes free aint best lol I use Paragon Hard Disk Manager for all jobs like this

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

Unfortunatley I'm on a zero cash outlay at the moment. so any method of converting the blank FAT32 drive into a exFAT one would be grateful.

---------- Post added at 18:27 ---------- Previous post was at 17:15 ----------

Solved it, to format a drive to exFAT you need a MS update installed (955704) on your system to format or even see a exFAT drive.

The link below is for XP and Windows Server 2003 varients.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955704

Re: USB flash drive size problems
 

you must be running XP then ,the ability to read exFAT file system was introduced in vista i believe as it is a relatively new system designed as a successor to FAT systems