What is the best product to format Thumb drives.

What do people use to partition and format thumb drives these days
(load boot sectors etc)
I have an old application from HP that kind of works but it is not
easy to do.

wrote:
What do people use to partition and format thumb drives these days
(load boot sectors etc)
I have an old application from HP that kind of works but it is not
easy to do.

I don't know about "best", but Windows can directly format it in FAT32, and
MiniTool Partition Wizard or Easeus Partition Manager works well for
partitioning for me:

https://www.minitool.com/partition-m...zard-home.html

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html

Or maybe you're looking for more (not sure).

On Mon, 24 Sep 2018 22:57:35 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

wrote:
What do people use to partition and format thumb drives these days
(load boot sectors etc)
I have an old application from HP that kind of works but it is not
easy to do.

I don't know about "best", but Windows can directly format it in FAT32, and
MiniTool Partition Wizard or Easeus Partition Manager works well for
partitioning for me:

https://www.minitool.com/partition-m...zard-home.html

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html

Or maybe you're looking for more (not sure).


Yeah I was just trying to make a short title when I said format.
Sorry
I understand that is trivial.
I was really talking about making partitions and loading bootable
OS's.
Does that partition manager make active partitions and load a working
boot sector? (Like from the OS you are using)
I am really thinking about making an XP thumb or two and I haven't
done it since I made my DOS and W/98 drives
I seem to remember that being sort of clunky.
I am really trying to avoid one more hard drive in this machine but I
may have to embrace the devil and load 7 on it. I would just like to
take a 32g thumb and clone my C: first so I can go back in time.
The reality is less than 5% of my day would be enhanced by 7 at all
but there are still a few things.

Another question. Back in the olden days you could boot from a small
drive and then link to another drive for your OS files and work space.
It was a common way to run DOS on your OS/2 machine.
You could do it with W/98 too.
Is there a way to do that in XP so I can boot from a relatively small
thumb source and actually do business on a hard drive? I understand
moving "Program Files" and the data repositories but how about the
registry ... and how often does that actually get hit?

I have been in the computer business (vacuum tube days) to know that
when we started "paging" you run at the speed of your DASD.

g,

What do people use to partition ...thumb drives these days

They don't.

An USB memory stick is a so-called "removable drive", and the OS only
recognises the first partition on it. Don't ask me why, I've also wondered
about that. Would have loved to have multi-partition sticks, especially as
they are getting bigger-and-bigger these days.

What do people use to ... format thumb drives these days

There are several build-in methods to format drives, with the simplest one
being the rightclick on the drive and selecting format. But you can also do
it from the "disk manager" (under "administrative tools"), or with either
the "format" or "diskpart" commandline utilities XP also offers (the latter
is very powerfull, but also rather easy to make mistakes with. Do not use,
unles you know what you are doing - most likely also allows you to create
multiple partitions on your thumbdrive, regardless of the OS refusing to
recognise them).

What do people use to ....load boot sectors etc.

Normally you do not need to do that. The formatting process includes
putting a bootsector on the drive. Only when you want to do use a
different OS on that stick you might need to change it.

And for those situations the program which puts the another OSes files on
the thumbdrive most often also prepairs the sticks filesystem to be actually
bootable for it.

But if you really need to replace the bootsector than there are a number of
(very) small programs availabe which just do that (and *only* that): point
to stick, point to bootsector file and press enter. Done. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
I've read "boot sector" as meaning exactly that, and not as (possibly)
*master* boot sector (which only exists on partitioned drives).

g,

I was really talking about making partitions and loading
bootable OS's.

If you find a way to actually boot XP from a thumbdrive that please let me
know, as I would also like to do that. The problem is that halfway the
bootprocess the USB drives get initialized (managing of them taken over by
the OS), meaning the "legacy" support disappears, and with it the access to
the drive & further needed files - which aborts the booting process.

I would just like to take a 32g thumb and clone my C: first
so I can go back in time.

In that case I would suggest you go look for a partition backup program, and
just let it do its thing. Most of those will allow you to use USB
thumbdrives (regardless of formatted with FAT/FAT32, NTFS or other) to store
the backups onto. Combine that with the backup program on, and booted from a
CD and you have a restore method thats also not susceptible to possible
(deep-rooted) malware.

Though you will have to look for an easy-to-use one though. I've recently
tried a Linux-based one which turned out to be a jumble of linked programs
and presented me with a ****load of questions before making the actual
backup - and *no* way to store it in a kind of configuration (for easy
restoring or repeated backup-making). :-(

Is there a way to do that in XP so I can boot from a relatively
small thumb source and actually do business on a hard drive?

As far as I know ? No (see above).

You could boot from another OS like linux though (not W98, as it does not
support filesystems over FAT32). But that would mean you would need to
learn how to use that OS, and its tools too. Not an easy solution.

That is, *maybe* the "rescue diskette" (the OS suggests you to make) could
be helpful ? It can boot into an environment where you can use (its)
programs ...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser