Can an external drive or USB Flash drive be formatted in NTFS & FAT32?

Virdi · 12 Jan 2009 at 08:24

Hi all,

Sorry - This maybe a bit of silly question...

But can a USB hard drive or Flash drive be formatted / partitioned half in NTFS and half in FAT32?

....But what would happen when you plug it into a PC though? Which partition would it pick up / see?

Thanks

rpstewart · 12 Jan 2009 at 09:18

Hmm, interesting one. I can't think of a reason why you couldn't do it other than NTFS having a minimum partition size of about 20Mb. In theory the PC should pick up both partitions when the stick is plugged in.

It's not something I've done so the above could be complete cobblers, mind you it's not going to be hard to try...

mithrandir · 12 Jan 2009 at 09:34

I'm pretty sure you can't do it but I could be wrong.
Why do you need to have it in two formats?

ChrisLX200 · 12 Jan 2009 at 09:55

Yes, you can have two partitions, one formatted Fat32 and t'other NTFS no problem. Both will be picked up as separate logical drives.