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Large files on memory stick

peterpi

peterpi

Member
I know that there is a 4GB limit with a FAT32 stick and I've tried so many different format, standards, EXT3 etc I've lost my way. Whats the accepted way of formatting a 16GB stick, so that I can read it on my VISTA / UBUNTU laptop.

I was going to include all the stuff I've tried, but as none worked, it would have been a waste of time and bandwidth.:)
 
EXT2 is probably the best bet. There are drivers available for Windows and Ubuntu will read it fine. EXT3 is a bad idea on a flash drive.
 
Ext2 if you don't want to install the custom firmware, but if you do then NTFS is the obvious way to go.
 
I used a program called "EASUS Partition Master", and formatted EXT2. I was able to copy an 8GB file to the USB drive, and read it on my Laptop. I wonder how you can tell when the file has been copied? You get the star twirly thing at the top right hand corner, but that disappears after a short while and I have to press buttons on my remote to get it back and see if the copy process is still active. Is there any other indication of "the state of play", whilst moving files to the USB?
 
Seasons Greetings All.

As a follow on to this thread, I'm still using EASEUS Partition Master to format USB sticks, but it is slow, an hour or more for 16 G Byte. Is there any alternative, or is it just a property of memory sticks that they take a long time to format?
 
peterpi said:
Seasons Greetings All.

As a follow on to this thread, I'm still using EASEUS Partition Master to format USB sticks, but it is slow, an hour or more for 16 G Byte. Is there any alternative, or is it just a property of memory sticks that they take a long time to format?
Click to expand...

If it is writing to each sector (not needed for memory sticks), then it may be getting confused. Really all a format of a memory stick needs to do is set up the partition table and initialise the FAT. The stick itself will already be set up for 512 byte sectors and can't be changed from that, unlike a hard disk. What does happen is the internal memory stick controller remaps the active memory block against the logical sector number when a write occurs so that the memory gets whats is known as 'wear levelling'.
 
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