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View Full Version : Tips for formatting Micro-drive

Stephen Beesley
10-17-2005, 04:52 AM
Well now that I have a Micro-drive I have been wondering the best way of formatting it. I plan to mainly use it for storing videos and mp3, but might also use it for some of my more space intensive games (eg AoE, Quake) and maybe some big .pdf files.

Does anybody with a Microdrive have any suggestions? BTW it is the 2.2 gb Magicstor Microdrive.
Darius Wey
10-17-2005, 09:55 AM
Do you have a card reader/writer? If so, you can insert it in there, right-click the drive in My Computer, and select Format.

Sounds like FAT32 would be your best bet, and since you plan on having a mixed bag of file sizes, you probably would want to leave it at the default allocation unit size.
Stephen Beesley
10-17-2005, 12:24 PM
Do you have a card reader/writer? If so, you can insert it in there, right-click the drive in My Computer, and select Format.

Sounds like FAT32 would be your best bet, and since you plan on having a mixed bag of file sizes, you probably would want to leave it at the default allocation unit size.

Thanks Darius - I knew you would be lurking around the boards!

I have been playing around with a few different formats using pocket mechanic - but have not yet decided which to stick with. Your suggestion sounds like a good one.

Still not sure if I will be keeping the micro-drive, but while I have it I might as well make use of it!
Darius Wey
10-17-2005, 02:15 PM
I have been playing around with a few different formats using pocket mechanic - but have not yet decided which to stick with. Your suggestion sounds like a good one.

I used to play around with CNetX Flash Format (http://www.cnetx.com/format/), though I stopped using it a long time ago when I got my hands on a card reader.

If I need a mobile formatting option though, I either use Spb Pocket Plus or Resco File Explorer. No fancy formatting support, but it gets the job done. :)
Menneisyys
10-17-2005, 05:11 PM
I have been playing around with a few different formats using pocket mechanic - but have not yet decided which to stick with. Your suggestion sounds like a good one.

You may want to play with the different FAT32 (if you use FAT16, you lose at least 100-150 Mbytes because of the 2G address limit of FAT16) cluster sizes, removing the second FAT table and so on. Also, you can give a try to other formatting tools - of them, I recommend SKTools.

You may also want to read this (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17921) article on card speed optimalization.