HP USB Format Tool
The hp usb format tool can quickly and easily format virtually any usb flash drive in a wide range of file system as well as create bootable usb media.
Portable usb flash drives are this generation’s floppy disks, holding everything from personal information to entertainment media and even secure data, with the added feature of being small and durable enough to withstand storing on a key chain, lanyard or carabiner.
You can even boot your computer from a usb flash drive, (just like the old floppy disks), which, alongside with its portability, universal compatibility and memory space to store useful programs, makes it the ideal recovery device as well.
Anyone who uses Windows on their computer should know that there is always more than a single solution to each computer troubleshooting issue, be it software or hardware-related. This same principle applies to formatting a peripheral disk, since one can rely on the tool integrated in Windows or on a dedicated third-party application.
The hp usb format tool is a tiny freeware tool that is designed specifically for the hp drive key or diskonkey usb 2.0 devices. Program installation does not pose a real issue however, since it is a very compact freeware and can run out-of-the-box. In other words, no installation is actually required to run it on your computer.
For our little experiment with the hp usb format tool, we used Windows 7 on a stock HP laptop. For more information about how your specific computer model will perform with this program, please leave us a comment with your computer’s make and model and we will get back to you.
For our test, we moved data off of an older 1gb usb 2.0 flash drive and then inserted the portable disk into an open usb port on the hp laptop. The hp usb format tool immediately identified it and its file type, FAT. We decided to reformat it in NTFS for the sake of this text and we also enabled compression. From there we clicked start, and a pop up warned us that all data on the drive would be lost.
This is a pretty standard warning for usb formatting across the board, so don’t fret. In this situation, there’s no downside to going back one last time to make sure there are no files left that you haven’t already copied onto your desktop.
We then allowed the program to proceed with the formatting the drive, and it completed the procedure in a matter of seconds. Clicking close called up a small dialog with detailed information about the drive in question. From there, we moved the data back to the newly reformatted drive, ejected it, reinserted it, and finally verified that everything was ok and running smoothly, including all of our various portable applications.
The hp usb format tool pretty much only has 4 steps:
- Specify the usb device you want to format
- Select the file system
- Assign the volume a label
- Optionally decide between:
o Quick format
o Enable compression
You also have the option of creating a DOS start up disk, by either using the internal MS DOS system files, or the ones located at a specific path. The hp usb format tool has a really compact interface, with an efficient little dialog and selections for device and file systems, along with 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.
The actual interface for the hp usb format tool looks a lot like the Windows integrated utility. Other than its start and close buttons, that’s pretty much it. You won’t even get a help file, although this program is probably easy enough to figure out even for the most basic user without one.
One of the main differences between the hp usb format tool and the regular formatting tools found in Windows 7 is the fact that this third part freeware allows users to select usb drives, while the Windows version does not provide this option.
Moreover, unlike this tiny freeware program, the Windows default format tool does not offer a NTFS volume label for format. The hp usb format tool also allows users to create a FAT32 volume which is larger than 32 GB. In addition, HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool enables users to rename all their USB flash drives in any way they want.
In addition, the hp usb format tool can be used to delete space on portable thumb drives that cannot be removed in the traditional way, create bootable USB drives, or simply remove any tracks of malicious software that may have infected it.
We recommend this program to anyone who uses flash drives. To wrap it up, if handled with care, this application can make it on the list of indispensable tools when using Windows, successfully enhancing its functions.
