As you all know that whenever we try to format our USB flash drive while we are using windows XP, then in the format USB dialog box (see the image below), we only have the option to format it using the FAT32 file system.
What if you want to format it using the NTFS file system instead? Actually I have just read an article which states that the speed of a USB increases if it is formatted with NTFS file system. So here is the method of getting this functionality in Windows XP too (Please note that in both Windows Vista and Windows 7, you can format a USB with NTFS by default).
- Insert your flash drive in your computer.
- Right click on “My Computer” icon on your desktop or in the start menu.
- Click on “Properties”.
- Select the “Hardware” tab.
- Click on “Device Manager”.
- Click on + sign next to “Disk drives”.
- Right click on the name of your flash drive in the appeared list and click on “Properties” in this menu.
- Choose the “Policies” tab.
- Select the “Optimize for performance” option and click OK.
- Now open the “My Computer” folder, right click on your flash drive and select “Format” to format it.
- Select “NTFS” in the “File system” drop down list, and click “Start”.
Enjoy!!!
Caution!
As stated in the Dialog box where we selected the “Optimize for performance” option, after selecting this option and formatting the flash drive with NTFS, it becomes more necessary to stop the drive using “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the windows notification area before removing it from the computer. Otherwise, problems may arise, or your flash drive may damage.
