How to Format a Hard Drive to NTFS on Windows

By: Revengsky Joseph D. Reyes (a.k.a rjdreyes)

Just yesterday, I bought a 500GB Portable Hard Drive and the preformatted file system was FAT32. When immediately I needed to copy a file with over 4GB, and I notice that it won’t copy no matter what.

The reason is the FAT32 limitation over 4GB file size. So I format the Portable Hard Drive to NTFS, and it works and I managed to copy the file with over 4GB file size.

I’ll give you steps or instructions on how to format a hard drive to NTFS:

(Using Disk Management on Windows)

1. On Windows click Start, go to Settings, click Control Panel.

2. On Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools.

3. On Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management.

4. On Computer Management, expand Storage, click on Disk Management.

5. Click on the Hard Drive you wish to format, then at the chosen Hard Drive, right-click and then click to Format…

6. On Format, chose your Volume Label (It will be the name of your Hard Drive), at File system, click to drop-down and choose to NTFS, Allocation unit size leave it to Default. Leave uncheck both Perform a quick format, and Enable file and folder compression.

7. Message follow, All data will be lost…..(Note : Just click Yes, if you are already backup your data, or you are sure nothing important files contain it.) Click Yes to proceed format, it may take longer about an hour, depends on the capacity of the hard drive. Wait until the format is finish.

(Note : I didn’t used quick format, the reason is that to make a full clean format, formatting wiped the files out and check for bad sectors)

(Using HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool) – For Portable Hard Drives and USB Flash Drives

If you don’t have yet a HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, click here

1. Run the program HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, Choose Device (e.g. USB Flash Drive), at File System choose NTFS, at Volume Label (e.g. name of your drive), leave uncheck on quick format and enable compression.

2. Click Start, then message appears to warned you all data will be lost. (Note : Just click Yes, if you are already backup your data, or you are sure nothing important files contain it.) Click Yes to proceed format.

3. Format begins, it may take longer about an hour, depends on the capacity of the media. Wait until the format is finish.

I hope, im able to help and clear the confusion. 🙂

Related References / Entries :
How to Install / Setup HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool by Jcyberinux
How to Create Bootable USB for Windows 98 AND DOS by Jcyberinux
Portable Hard Drive cannot transfer larger than 4 GB by Jcyberinux