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CNET Editors' review
USB flash drives are this century's floppies, holding everything from personal and medical information to music and pictures and even secure data, with the added advantage of being small and rugged enough for keychain duty. You can even boot from flash drives, just like the old floppies, which, together with portability, universal compatibility, and enough space to host useful tools, makes them ideal recovery devices. Hewlett-Packard's USB Disk Storage Format Tool can quickly and thoroughly format virtually any USB flash drive in a wide range of file systems as well as create bootable USB media. We tested it in Windows 7.
This compact tool has an equally compact interface, an efficient little dialog with selections for Device and File system, and an entry field for Volume label, and check boxes for format options, including the ability to create a bootable DOS start-up disk using either internal system files or files at a location you can specify. Other than Start and Close buttons, that's it, not even a Help file, though this tool is easy enough to figure out without one. We moved the data off of an older 1GB flash drive and inserted the drive in an open USB port. HP USB immediately identified it and its file type, FAT. We chose to reformat it in NTFS and enable compression. We clicked Start, and a pop-up warned us all data on the drive would be lost. We allowed it to proceed, and it formatted the drive in seconds. Clicking Close called up a small dialog with detailed information about the drive. We then moved the data back to the newly reformatted drive, ejected it, reinserted it, and verified that everything was in order, including our portable apps.
HP's little tool is the USB flash drive tool that could, bringing enhanced power and capability to your Windows system at no cost. We recommend it to anyone who uses flash drives.
Publisher's Description
From Hewlett-Packard:
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool utility will format any USB flash drive, with your choice of FAT, FAT32, or NTFS partition types. You can also make the disk bootable by specifying a file location.
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All versions:
4.4 starsout of 17 votes
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Current version:
4.4 starsout of 17 votes
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My rating:
Write review
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"Best Card/USB Recovery Program Out There!"
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
I literally tried several different recovery programs when my SD cards started showing that the size of them were incorrect. I have an 8GB card that started reading that it was only a 2GB card. I tried many recovery programs that took forever to reformat, only to not fix the initial problem. Then I tried the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool and not only did it correct the problem, It did so in only 10 seconds! I would advise anyone who is having difficulty with their card to download this immediately! This is the best Free program that I have ever used! Thank you!
Cons
No Cons At All!
Summary
Without a doubt, the best program ever made regarding fixing your USB/SD Flash Cards!
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"Out of three programs only one that worked!"
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
IT WORKS!!! out of the three i tried (Swissknife and some others on cnet.)
Does the job swapped my external hard drive to fat32.Cons
It takes awhile about 5 mins but at least it works!
Summary
Great program does the job!
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"worked fine in Win 7"
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
worked fine
Cons
I did not find any
Summary
I had a flash drive that desktop opened Ok, but laptop wanted a label. now it has one and works ok
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"Simple. Works great in Windows 7."
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Dead simple to use. Allows for FAT32 partitions over 32GB. Works as advertised.
Cons
Should really install itself in Program files directory rather than C:\DriveKey as default.
Summary
To those having trouble running this in Windows 7, right-click and 'Run As Administrator'. It's very common for Windows UAC to block a program like this, especially one that can format a drive. This is a Windows security feature, not a failure of this program.
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"PERFECT! Works when others wont!"
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Very Fast and simple to use!
Works when you mess up you USBCons
NO cons to make
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"Working as intended."
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Has the ability to format my USB pendrive which has several partitions and apparently Windows format tool only detected the first partition.
Cons
None so far.
Summary
Should be good for anyone who used their USB pendrive for Linux Live image, or anything of the sort, when Windows format tool can't do it's job properly.
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"Did not do what I needed."
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Easy to install
Cons
Apparently won't work on Vista (at least not on my system . . . but I should have read the requirements first).
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"Does what its supposed to do...."
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Painless install, small footprint
Cons
None as yet...
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"Easily wipes "U3" (et al) flash drives..."
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Does exactly what it's supposed to -and- more importantly, when and where others won't.
No bells or whistles... doesn't need any.Cons
Eh, a bit klunky install.
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"Did what I needed"
Version: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.1.8
Pros
Simple to use and it worked.
Cons
None really...
Summary
This is a simple, no bells and whistles utility that merely does what it's supposed to .
I have an 8GB Sandusk Cruzer that I installed Linux on. Thereafter everything identified it as a 500MB drive and nothing would fix it. Nothing would let me delete the partition and create a new one. This utility did and I now have an 8GB flashdrive once again. I'm planning to do it all over again with a different distribution so I'm keeping this little utility to fix things again later. ;)
