Many users mistakenly believe that formatting a flash drive is a procedure for deleting data from the digital media. In fact, this operation has a broader purpose, which is identical to formatting a hard disk. And if, as is often the case, do not pay attention to it, then such carelessness can negatively affect the operation of the memory card. That’s why we decided to deal with the topic, in what format to format a flash drive for Android
SD-cards are available in almost every Android-device. And it is quite understandable – it is not quite logical to store all the available content on the internal storage, especially the volume of internal memory, most devices have a very small, but with a flash drive memory of the device can be increased from two to 32 gigabytes and even more, it’s just a matter of your desire and financial resources.
However, it is not uncommon when an Android device begins to work incorrectly with a memory card due to various problems, to get rid of which you can format the memory card.
What is formatting a flash drive
Formatting a memory card should be understood as a procedure for processing any digital data storage device (information). The purpose of this procedure is to organize or completely change the structure of the drive.
As mentioned above, all storage media can be formatted, whether they are hard drives, USB flash cards or S-D memory cards.
Attention! Before you start formatting, you should pay attention to the fact that as a result of this procedure all information on the drive will be erased and it is often impossible to restore it.
On the other hand, during the formatting process, the system detects and repairs damaged fragments of the structure.
How to format a flash drive for Android
There are several types of file systems, such as NTFS, FAT, FAT32, exFAT and others. All of them have both their pros and cons. Let’s talk about these in more detail.
Most Android devices support FAT32. The main advantages of this system can be called good speed and compatibility. For example, in a household DVD player, photo printer or media player, if you insert such a drive, all files will be available and readable.
Another file system designed for flash-drives – exFAT. It is created relatively recently by the same Microsoft and in my opinion, it is ideal for flash drives and memory cards, because it is FS FAT32, in which the restrictions are removed. That is, the size of files, as well as partitions in it can be of any size, and the number of files stored in one folder is practically unlimited.
*Note: for some home appliances and Windows XP computers this format is irrelevant.
Modern and reliable is considered NTFS – file system, which replaced in modern PCs, described above, FAT32. NTFS has the advantage of providing a higher level of information security.
What you need to pay attention to is the size of downloaded files. The thing is that in FAT32 the file size is limited to 4 Gbytes, so when downloading a movie or any application of a larger size, the system will give the error “Not enough space in the memory of the device”, although in fact there is still plenty of space:
What you need to do to make Android see the flash drive
So, to make your Android smartphone see the flash drive, we need to change the format on it. To do this, there are several ways, about which read on.
Using the OS functions of the device
On some phones, it is possible to change the file system seamlessly. To do this, through the main “Settings” open the “Memory” section. Find the item “Memory settings”, then the line “Format memory card”, open and change the file system from FAT32 to NTFS. Now you can press “OK” and wait for the process to complete.
Not all models of Android devices have a tool that allows you to change the file system. In this case, let’s use the PC tools.
Using a computer
In Windows, the formatting function is standard and does not present special difficulties. So, connect your Android device to the computer with a USB cable, don’t forget to enable USB debugging:
Now on the PC press “Start”, then “Computer” (or “My Computer”). Among the displayed disks find the removable media of your device, on the screenshot it is disk “E”, I called it MAIN, not to confuse it with the internal memory of the phone, because, by default, both of these disks will be called “removable media”, differing only by a letter (“E”, “F” or something else). Right-click on the “E” disk, select “Format” in the list of actions that appears:
In the window that opens, click the arrow in the field with the current FAT32 format and select the NTFS format. Then activate the “Start” button:
*Note:
- Make sure your phone is the only removable disk connected to your computer.
- To make sure it is the SD card (drive “E” in the screenshot) that will be formatted, check its contents.
If you have chosen exFAT format for your flash drive, follow the steps in the screenshot above to select exFAT instead of NTFS instead of FAT32 .
Using the convert function
This method allows you to perform the file system conversion procedure without losing any data on the flash drive. Nevertheless, my advice is to take care of saving the information just in case. So.
Connect the smartphone to the PC as described above. Don’t forget to activate USB debugging. On the PC, in the lower left corner, click on the “Start” button, in the search enter “cmd”, when the search for the program is completed, press the “Enter” key:
Now, in the command line window that opens, type convert E: /fs:ntfs, where “E” is the literal of the removable disk (SD card) that will be subjected to the formatting procedure:
The command line field may look different (depending on the operating system), which does not change the applied actions:
There is another way to get to the command line: On the computer, click “Start“, then “All Programs“, select “Standard” at the bottom of the list, find the item “Command Prompt”, right-click on it. From the list that appears, open “Run as administrator“. Answer the program’s request to make changes in the affirmative, and then you can make changes as described above.
*Note:
- Programs running from the drive to be converted should be closed.
- Before starting the formatting procedure, make sure that the battery charge is at least 50 – 70%.
- Do not forget to save important data.
We told you in what format to format a flash drive for Android in order to change the file system. But, as mentioned above, the formatting procedure can also be applied to clean the memory card. Read about it here.
