Windows 10: NTFS USB drives not showing in explorer, but FAT32 is

For some reason my PC is not showing NTFS formatted disks in explorer. Disk Management will show the drive as a healthy primary partition, but unformatted. It also shows when I click the remove and eject media icon. This is the same for all NFTS drives, and on all the USB ports on the PC. FAT32 USB sticks work ok. An NTFS SATA and NVMe drives are also showing. Drivers are up to date.

I have a second installation of Windows on another drive, and all the NTFS drives work when running that version of Windows. So I don’t gthink this is a hardware issue with the drives or the PC.



The last major thing I did on this PC which may affect this is realigning an underperforming SSD drive to 4K using this guide:

https://www.howtogeek.com/270358/how-to-speed-up-your-solid-state-drive-by-re-aligning-its-partitions/



I also plugged in a drive which I then found out was formatted to Linux.



Those are the only two things I can think of that would affect this.



I hope there is a solution to this?

:)

 

what is the difference in fat32 and NTFS HDD formating???

NTFS is far superior when it comes to data safety, as when it comes to performance with large files. Just disconnect and connect a FAT32 USB drive a few times without using the remove button and then do the same to a NTFS drive. The FAT32 drive will be screwed while the NTFS drives requires a run of chkdsk at the most. I wouldn't safe anything I wish to keep on a FAT32 disk.

 

USB media formatting recquirerments, FAT32 or NTFS?

Hi,

It doesn't matter if it is FAT32 or NTFS, it depends on the user preference.

For more information about FAT32, and NTFS, kindly check the details below:

NT File System (NTFS):

• NTFS is the modern file system Windows likes to use by default. When you install Windows, it formats your system drive with the NTFS file system.
• It works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default, and may be read-only by default with some Linux distributions. Other devices—with the exception of Microsoft’s Xbox One—probably won’t support NTFS.

FAT32:

• FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. It was introduced all the way back in Windows 95 to replace the older FAT16 file system used in MS-DOS and Windows 3.
• Works with all versions of Windows, Mac, Linux, game consoles, and practically anything with a USB port.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Regards.

 

Creating a BitLocker key on a USB drive - What format should I apply to the USB key, NTFS or FAT32?

Hello MS Community!

I will be creating a BitLocker key on a USB drive - What format should I apply to the USB key, NTFS or FAT32? My first impression would be NTFS as I don't need this key to boot the drive, only UNLOCK it.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks -

TeknoDiva