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Re: important! Windows 10 doesn't allow fat 32 formatting for flash drives for the moment

coffeekingms@hotmail.com
 

Hi

Fair point about reFS. Wikipedia didn’t specifically say that it was ms’s proprietary raid, I sort of paraphrased it. What it actually said was a lot of complex language regarding sector allocation, data stripes, and the like. It sounded like raid and it seemed to work similar to raid, but I think it may actually be most similar to btrfs on Linux or maybe zfs on bsd. To dumb it down a bit, it’s supposed to provide better redundancy if a disk fails and provide better recovery if a disk runs into problems. I believe it also compresses stuff by default, but again I’m no expert.

In any case, I’ve started using guiformat.exe and it works like a charm until Microsoft restores the functionality, or fixes the bug if it is a bug.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

 

 

Sent from my Vizio Ultrabook

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> on behalf of Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@...>
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 6:05:21 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] important! Windows 10 doesn't allow fat 32 formatting for flash drives for the moment
 

Hi,

Correction: although ReFS integrates some RAID features, it isn’t really a complete RAID solution.

Cheers,

Joseph

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Joseph Lee
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 4:04 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] important! Windows 10 doesn't allow fat 32 formatting for flash drives for the moment

 

Hi,

FAT32 can format drives up to 2 terabytes maximum, and 32 GB is the artificial limit imposed. ReFS (Resilient File System), contrary to what you may have read on Wikipedia, is not Microsoft’s version of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). The file system structure is a bit similar in concept but it is not RAID, as ReFS is designed for large storage pools and for data integrity on those pools (you can’t boot from a ReFS volume, and you can’t read ReFS formatted pools unless you have Windows 10 Version 1709 or Server 1709).

Cheers,

Joseph

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of coffeekingms@...
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 3:57 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] important! Windows 10 doesn't allow fat 32 formatting for flash drives for the moment

 

Hi

I’m not absolutely positive the fat32 feature is gone, but I *think* it is. My reasons are because on flash drives, only the XFat and ntfs options are visible, and on external hard drives, or more correctly, external hard drives above a certain size, what that size is I’m not sure, only the ntfs option is usable, along with something called reFS, which Wikipedia says is microsoft’s proprietary implementation of raid. There are tools to do this I have no doubt, several people have pointed out programs. My reason for posting it hear was because this was able to be done out of the box before and it isn’t now. I’m puzzled by the removal, if it is a removal. It is always possible NVDA suddenly can’t see the option, and I’ll check with narrator really quickly but I doubt that’s the problem. It’s either deliberate or a bug. If it is a bug it’s a recent one, because I don’t remember having this problem a month or so ago, so that narrows down the list of updates that could’ve caused it. But windows isn’t … well it’s not as open as I’m used to so it’s harder to debug. It can be done but when you’re used to Linux and it’s internals being available … That’s another reason I want to get involved with NVDA development, or at least involved in the community. I want to get as comfortable with windows as I am with Linux, to the point where I’m able to essentially take it apart to fix if needed. Right now I’d say I’m barely above an average user with windows. If that.

 

Thanks

Kendell Clark

 

 

Sent from my Vizio Ultrabook

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> on behalf of Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io <bglists@...>
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 4:11:04 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] important! Windows 10 doesn't allow fat 32 formatting for flash drives for the moment

 

Yes a friend has a big drive formatted in some  way, but it would not play
on the stick player. take the data off format it to fat32, copy it back and
hey presto. it works, though I'd not go for his choice in music.
 I'm glad the batch file worked, and as you say there are programs out there
that do this, however one has to wonder why Msoft would remove a normal
format mode from the gui. are we absolutely sure its gone, and its not just
an nvda issue that cannot see the button or checkbox?
 Also does the program also do a verify?
 I note that windows says it is doing it, but I have my doubts that its
doing more than reading the fat.
 Brian

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Giles Turnbull" <giles.turnbull@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2017 11:41 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] important! Windows 10 doesn't allow fat 32 formatting
for flash drives for the moment


I ran into this problem when I replaced my Booksense book reader with a
Blaze earlier this year. I decided I'd buy a 128Gb SD card, which I quicly
found the Blaze couldn't handle. I knew the Booksense was limited to 32Gb
and later found out the Blaze is can handle max 64Gb. I found that out when
I emailed HIMS because I was fed up at having an unusable 128Gb drive!

They suggested FAT32 formatter with a GUI that worked fine for me with NVDA.
It is called guiformat.exe and I found it with a quick Google search. It has
a combo box with all available drives and lets you choose the allocation
unit size and lets you label the drive with whatever name you like.

My Blaze ET handles the FAT32 formatted 128Gb SD card fine.

Giles
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