Formatting USB memory as NTFS

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I posted a warning about this problem in the “Windows Secrets Columns” area. I have a Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit computer.
I wanted to create a disk image, and I got stuck at the very first step. I got a 32G Sandisk Cruzer USB memory stick. When I tried to back up onto it, it couldn’t be done because the stick was not NTFS formatted. I try to format it in NTFS, and at the end of the process I get “Windows was unable to complete the format”. I am trying various things, but failing.
I tried formating it as FAT32, or restoring it to that. I tried an HP tool designed to format memory sticks. I hope I haven’t ruined the device. When I looked on the web, I only saw solutions that I didn’t understand, or that didn’t work for me. The last thing I did was to format it as FAT32. It looked empty after that, with “show hidden files” set.
Has someone been through this and found a solution?

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In checking This post from How To Geekit should be possible to format a USB Flash Drive to NTFS. Perhaps your problem is caused by the flash drive. In checking the Scandisk site it appears their sticks should be able to be re-formated fairly easily. You might want to check with the reseller for a replacement.

Using a flash drive to store your Images may not be the best alternative for long term storage, These devices are generally less predictable for long term use than, say, an Ext USB HD. The prices for these HD’s are coming down very nicely. You might want to check this out.

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I haven’t had any problem formatting quite a few flash drives to NTFS so I can get some large files on them. Try an XP system and if it doesn’t work there, I would also tend to think there is some glitch with your flash drive.

One slight possibility, I remember something in Optional Windows Updates pertaining to making flash cards = to or greater than 32 gig compatible, but it may not be applicable to USB flash drives.

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Byron, hello. I quote you as :

>>>One slight possibility, I remember something in Optional Windows Updates pertaining to making flash cards = to or greater than 32 gig compatible, but it may not be applicable to USB flash drives.

There was a crook in HongKong selling “doctored” 4 G SDHC to read that they were 32 Giggers. Google for fake 32 G. I got taken on two of them and only saw that they were fake after using them. I now use them as 4 Giggers and the world is happy. This took place on eBay.

I have since refrained from doing any trade with any HK address and mentioned why to all of them.

Be good……….Jean.

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The very simple step 1 in the “how to geek” article was the very first thing I had already tried that failed. Then I unchecked the “quick format” and tried, and, again, failure, at the very end of the formatting process, with the error message that I quoted. I also did try doing this in an XP machine, with the same result. Both machines have the same security software (VIPRE). I may try with a different XP machine.
My understanding was that the compatibility problem only occurs with greater than 32 Gig, and not with equal to 32 Gig.

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I posted a warning about this problem in the “Windows Secrets Columns” area. I have a Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit computer.
I wanted to create a disk image, and I got stuck at the very first step. I got a 32G Sandisk Cruzer USB memory stick. When I tried to back up onto it, it couldn’t be done because the stick was not NTFS formatted. I try to format it in NTFS, and at the end of the process I get “Windows was unable to complete the format”. I am trying various things, but failing.
I tried formating it as FAT32, or restoring it to that. I tried an HP tool designed to format memory sticks. I hope I haven’t ruined the device. When I looked on the web, I only saw solutions that I didn’t understand, or that didn’t work for me. The last thing I did was to format it as FAT32. It looked empty after that, with “show hidden files” set.
Has someone been through this and found a solution?

yerubal, have you tried this ? http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/11063-converting-external-hd-fat-32-ntfs.html

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Roderunner, I had not tried anything like the SevenForums item. It looks VEry promising, and I’ll try it later today, when I have a chance.

[Not to confuse things, but to report something:
I wanted to see what the USB drive looked like on an XP system that has MSE instead of VIPRE for security. This wa on the Win side of a Mac. This was right after formatting it as Fat32 on my other XP PC. I looked at the contents of the USB drive, and found 3 items I had never seen, two folders and one file, respectively, .Spotlight-V100 folder, .Trashes folder, and ._.Trashes file. I wonder if they were placed there during the last (Fat32) formatting. In any case, I’m going to go with Roderunner’s suggestion next.]

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Roderunner, I had not tried anything like the SevenForums item. It looks VEry promising, and I’ll try it later today, when I have a chance.

[Not to confuse things, but to report something:
I wanted to see what the USB drive looked like on an XP system that has MSE instead of VIPRE for security. This wa on the Win side of a Mac. This was right after formatting it as Fat32 on my other XP PC. I looked at the contents of the USB drive, and found 3 items I had never seen, two folders and one file, respectively, .Spotlight-V100 folder, .Trashes folder, and ._.Trashes file. I wonder if they were placed there during the last (Fat32) formatting. In any case, I’m going to go with Roderunner’s suggestion next.]

Can USB name be changed. How does it look as in my image ?

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Roderunner, I had not tried anything like the SevenForums item. It looks VEry promising, and I’ll try it later today, when I have a chance.

[Not to confuse things, but to report something:
I wanted to see what the USB drive looked like on an XP system that has MSE instead of VIPRE for security. This wa on the Win side of a Mac. This was right after formatting it as Fat32 on my other XP PC. I looked at the contents of the USB drive, and found 3 items I had never seen, two folders and one file, respectively, .Spotlight-V100 folder, .Trashes folder, and ._.Trashes file. I wonder if they were placed there during the last (Fat32) formatting. In any case, I’m going to go with Roderunner’s suggestion next.]

Trashes folder sounds like Macs version of recycle bin. maybe the mac you plugged it in put them there.

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A sad outcome to my attempt to do the Fat32 -> NTFS conversion, using the SevenForums method. In Windows7, I went to an Elevated Command Prompt, and then used the “convert” command recommended. What happened was exactly as in the illustration there (at “step 4”), until after the line “Converting file system”. Then, I got the following lines:

The first NTFS boot sector is unwriteable.
All NTFS boot sectors are unwriteable. Cannot continue.

(At that point, the cursor went to the next line, but there was nothing on that line other than the cursor, and the flash drive kept flashing.)
I have to leave this project here for now. I might be able to return to it later today, though I don’t know what to do with the latest clues.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that the 3 items I found in my previous post, 2 folders and a file, were deleted by me as soon as I found them, and before the procedure reported in the present post.

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Well, it either can’t or wont write the NTFS boot sectors, which means it either prevented by some protocol from writing or its just corrupted and can’t be written to.

Either way it doesn’t look too promising. What I would try, just because its a different approach, and not because it may do the trick (though it might ), is use Gparted to write a new partition table and then try and format it to NTFS with Gparted.

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Byron, thanks for the idea. I don’t have the understanding and know-how to use the Gnome partition program, however, with enough confidence.
If no sufficiently simple solution pops up, I might wind up trying to use about 7 DVDs, instead of this memory stick. The fact that you have formatted quite a few flash drives as NTFS without problems makes me wonder what happened here (Maybe there’s something wrong with the stick, as has been suggested. Or I might have dinged the drive by now, by subjecting it to some of the formatting attempts, etc., that I performed.). Discouraging.
NOTE: For what it’s worth: Just for the heck of it, I took a 2GB USB drive and formatted it as NTFS on the Windows 7 PC, just by right clicking on the icon and then choosing format and NTFS, etc., and sure enough it went quickly, smoothly and successfully.
EDIT: I wonder whether it has to do with the 32G size after all.

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This might be a different topic. I don’t know. I tried doing an image backup using (4.7G) DVD-R’s. The PC said the backup might take up to 27G, but it took less than 2 DVD’s. That seems suspicious. I’ve read that there isn’t usually very much compression. Any comment? I sure don’t know how to check; I trusted that it was doing what it was supposed to.
EDIT: I did decline to do a System Repair Disk, since I had made one some time ago.

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I’ve included the image that corresponds to yours, as an attachment.
EDIT: I see it’s not exactly like yours. Don’t know if that’s important.

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I’ve included the image that corresponds to yours, as an attachment.
EDIT: I see it’s not exactly like yours. Don’t know if that’s important.

yerubal, it was the security tab I wanted as in my image.

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yerubal, it was the security tab I wanted as in my image.

Roderunner, but, as you can see, there is no security tab for me. That’s what I meant in my EDIT. I could see it was not the same. I have no idea why the difference.

EDIT: Maybe you get a security tab if the format is NTFS?

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Roderunner, but, as you can see, there is no security tab for me. That’s what I meant in my EDIT. I could see it was not the same. I have no idea why the difference.

EDIT: Maybe you get a security tab if the format is NTFS?

yerubal, I don’t have any item with ‘Fat32’ so I can’t test it. Have you anything on you USB, if yes, remove it, then try as Ted said, format in disk management.

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SUMMARY:

Problem:
new SanDisk Ultra 32G SDHC un-usable (wants to format!?) in Win7.
EVERY READER DOES IT.
All readers work OK w/the same (but 8G) SDHC.
Explorer msg pretty useless (just said can’t format; not why!).
DOS FORMAT said bad:

C:WindowsSystem32>format d: /fs:ntfs /v:021-IV
Insert new disk for drive D:
and press ENTER when ready…
The type of the file system is RAW.
The new file system is NTFS.
Verifying 30M
Creating file system structures.

The first NTFS boot sector is unwriteable.

All NTFS boot sectors are unwriteable. Cannot continue.
Format failed.

Attempts to fix:
. APPLYd KB982018; no change after re-boot.
. already have KB976422 (SD > 32G) APPLYd (12/8/10) (your opt WinUpd fix).

Solution:
. went back to store where I bought it and asked them to read it:
none of theirs could
(various failures; found a laptop cofigured from a system-level perspective which failed),
so CARD WAS PHYSICALLY BAD! Tried a new one; worked at store. Brought home,
now all readers can see it; all functions (format, write, read etc) work normally
(a la previously OK 32G USB).

Time wasted: apx 5 person-hours.
Time w/store: apx 1 hour. TIME WELL SPENT! Great service Staples!

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Can you right click on the device (I assume it’s the device labeled Disk 1 TINYTOM) in the device manager screen and choose to format as NTFS from here?

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Can you right click on the device (I assume it’s the device labeled Disk 1 TINYTOM) in the device manager screen and choose to format as NTFS from here?

Yes, but that’s what I’ve done, more than once by now. The process poops out at the very end, as I’ve described. I’ve done it both that way and from command line, with the same ultimate results.

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I thought I had tried the formatting from Disk Management, but I wasn’t certain, as by now I’m suffering from “moldytasking”. Indeed, the interface didn’t look familiar, so I hadn’t tried starting there, though I couldn’t help being pessimistic, given the track record. The “quick” format was rejected immediately, as usual. The long process took 40 minutes and yielded , but ultimately yielded

EDIT: I should have mentioned at some point that a while back I did a chkdsk, and it found no problems.

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If Roderunner’s last suggestion does not work, I would pronounce TINYTOM dead and give him a proper funeral. I do not think the 32 GB size is the problem, but you could try to partition the device into two partitions and attempt to format in NTFS just to see what happens.

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If Roderunner’s last suggestion does not work, I would pronounce TINYTOM dead and give him a proper funeral. I do not think the 32 GB size is the problem, but you could try to partition the device into two partitions and attempt to format in NTFS just to see what happens.

Thanks Gerald, this was to be my next item.

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The funeral will be a small family affair.
(If I do try partitioning later, and meet with any success, I’ll look for this thread and post once more.
Sounds interesting.)
Thanks, everyone.
EDIT: Another formulation: Thanks for the USB memories ;^)

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Repartition, good idea, its a poor man’s workaround to GParted, but if perchance repartitioning doesn’t work or only partly works, did the possibly dearly departed leave behind a no resuscitate order?
If not, I’d still try writing a new partition table with GParted before going meekly into the night that is forever. Its safe to use as long as you only have that one partition of that size and select that from the dropdown. You can even test that you have the right one by unplugging the drive and then rescanning the drives with GParted, the one that disappears is definitely the USB flash drive.

I don’t know if you’ve ever said or not but does it behave normally when its a FAT32 formatted drive?

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Byron, yes, it does behave normally when it’s FAT32 formatted.

Repartition, good idea, its a poor man’s workaround to GParted, but if perchance repartitioning doesn’t work or only partly works, did the possibly dearly departed leave behind a no resuscitate order?
If not, I’d still try writing a new partition table with GParted before going meekly into the night that is forever. Its safe to use as long as you only have that one partition of that size and select that from the dropdown. You can even test that you have the right one by unplugging the drive and then rescanning the drives with GParted, the one that disappears is definitely the USB flash drive.

I don’t know if you’ve ever said or not but does it behave normally when its a FAT32 formatted drive?

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Yerubal,

You might try a free partitioning tool like Easeus Partition Master.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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yerubal, read this http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/289

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yerubal, read this http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/289

Reporting: I finally tried this, with precisely the usual results.

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Reporting: I finally tried this, with precisely the usual results.

I guess if it was’nt for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all.

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I agree with MtheK; you got a bad stick. I don’t have a 32G, but I have an assortment of smaller capacity, 8G to 2G. All will accept NTFS format without a hitch. A 2G I’ve reformatted as FAT32 to use for a small plug-in mp3 player for my truck.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

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