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Kingston DataTraveler MiniSlim 8GB - No NTFS?

You should be able to format the drive from My Computer. Just right click on the drive, and select Format... That said, if you need more control than that, or you want to do more with the drive, HP used to give away a free utility that would format a USB flash drive to FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS. You can download it here as HPUSBBOOTTOOL.zip.

Please see note at end of my post about a newer version.

This file contains:
  • HP USB disk storage format tool V2.0.6 HPUSBFW.exem renamed hpflash1.exe - This installs the Drive Key, the program that creates a bootable flash drive.

  • A second compressed file that contains COMMAND.COM from DOS 7 (Win 98) and boot files, such as a CD ROM driver, etc. required to do more than you'll need until you want to run DOS tasks that may require them. (see below).
1. Extract the files, and Install DriveKey.

2. Place the added files in a folder under the installed program folder, C: \Program Files\DriveKey.

3. Place a copy of COMMAND.COM from the above extracted file in yet another folder under C: \Program Files\DriveKey.

4. Place a copy of Mouse.Com in the same folder that contains only Command.Com.

When you run DriveKey, it will ask for the location of the boot files you want to use. For most DOS programs, all you will need is COMMAND.COM, MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS and a mouse driver. Directing the program to that folder will create the bootable drive with only these files.

I have used this utility to create bootable flash drives for DOS 6.22 and DOS 7. It didn't work with DR-DOS.

Note -- While checking further, I found a newer version of the program, ver. 2.1.8. I just downloaded it, and I haven't tested it, yet, and it doesn't include the required DOS boot files, which you can also find on bootdisk.com.

That should be more than you need. 🙂
 
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Hey mate! Thanks a lot that was very helpful, the utility you provided worked!

For some reason the Windows format utility does not display NTFS as an option, only FAT32 and xFAT. Any idea why? Is it perhaps a limitation put there by Kingston?

Anyway, I now managed to format it via that utility and I can now copy over files larger than 4GB. Only drawback was that I could not select the desired cluster size with that utility as far as I can tell.

Anyway, thanks a lot!
 
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The info for the new version says it includes NTFS. As noted, I just found that and posted it in case it provided any advantages, but I didn't have time to test it.

As I also said, you should also be able to format it from My Computer, but that also may not give you the option to choose NTFS.

Sorry about the "edit" note in your reply. I'm a Moderator, and I accidentally hit the edit button, instead of the reply button. 😳
 
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Yep, all you had to do was enable write-caching/performance optimized to get NTFS, but it comes with some risk. If you format NTFS, then you must (or at least should) always use the 'remove/eject hardware' feature before unplugging the drive or there is a fair chance that you could hose the data on it when write-cache/performance is enabled. This is why its disabled by default for removable drives.
 
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