Solved Drive name limited to 11 characters

[bawldiggle]

How can I use a drive label name longer than eleven characters?
(as restricting as Win95 days)

Have looked at Drive - Rename. My thumb drive name needs about 3 more characters

Thank you

 

[LMiller7]

NTFS volumes can have a volume label of up to 32 characters. The FAT32 file system limits volume names to 11 characters. There isn't room to store more.

 

[bawldiggle]

Thank you "LMiller7" for your response.
Would there be any merit in reformatting the thumb-drive to NTSF ?
And then reloading my files onto the thumb-drive.
Would the source have to be NTSF or could the source be FAT32 ?

... OR ... is my idea dead in the water ...

Thank you

 

[VistaKing]

Open up an Elevated Command Prompt. Click on rb: in

type CMD . Right click on CMD under Programs (1) choose

. On the User Access Control window click on the Yes button . Command Prompt opens up to C:\Windows\System32>_

Inside the command prompt window type in the command below

Convert X: /FS:NTFS

press [Enter]

   Note

Change the letter X to your actual drive letter

 

[bawldiggle]

Thank you "VistaKing" for such a quick response

Your suggestion is my first CMD adventure. (A little apprehensive)

Would this reformatting apply to thumb-drives and external HDDs ?

Will WinXP PCs tolerate the NTSF external drives (Files: TXT, media, autocad) ?

Thank you

 

[bobafetthotmail]

NTFS is better than FAT32 in many ways (can also store files bigger than 4 GB), but not all non-computer devices can read it. If you care about connecting it to a TV or some other device (phones/tablets through USB OTG), check if it is able to read NTFS filesystems.

EDIT: NTFS is fully usable by XP and newer Windows, it's Read-only on Mac, it works fine on Linux.

 

[VistaKing]

Thank you "VistaKing" for such a quick response

Your suggestion is my first CMD adventure. (A little apprehensive)

Would this reformatting apply to thumb-drives and external HDDs ?

Thank you

Your drive will not be formatted it just converts the file system from FAT32 to NTFS

 

[bawldiggle]

Thank you "bobafetthotmail"

My computers are vegetarian and free range, they don't smoke.

 

[bawldiggle]

.. just converts the file system from FAT32 to NTFS

I thought my Win7 (32bit) Toshiba Satellite laptop system is already NTSF ?

Sorry for being a little dumb.
Will "bobafetthotmail" process alter the external drives or the file system on the laptop?.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

clarifying post 4:

when you write

Convert X: /FS:NTFS

you need to write the drive letter of the drive that will be converted in the place of the X.

So, if your USB drive is drive F: (check from My Computer) you need to write

Convert F: /FS:NTFS

Ok?

Don't worry about sounding dumb, CMD is a powerful tool, don't do stuff unless you are very sure you have understood everything.

And yes, any windows operating system from XP onwards formats the hard drive as NTFS during installation, so the laptop's own drive is already NTFS.

 

[bawldiggle]

Open up an Elevated Command Prompt. Click on rb: in

type CMD . Right click on CMD under Programs (1) choose

. On the User Access Control window click on the Yes button . Command Prompt opens up to C:\Windows\System32>_

Just tried your process but my Win7 32bit does not have the features quoted
I tried your steps in both "Classic Start" UI and default Win7 UI

Click on "Start"
Run:= CMD ... opens command prompt ... C:\Users\Owner>
Search:= CMD ... opens command prompt ... C:\windows\system32>
1: No "Run as Administrator" on RClick context menu
2: No "Programs (1)" to select
3: No User Access Control window
4: No "Yes" button
​

Should I just log-in as administrator to carry out the conversion, and bypass 1: thru 4: ?
The only way I can get C:\windows\system32> is via "Search"
Would the cmd string be ...

C:\windows\system32>Convert X: /FS:NTFS

... OR ... should there be a space as in ...

C:\windows\system32> Convert X: /FS:NTFS

Thank you for your patience

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Did you disable the User Account Control perhaps? (that's the screen dimming and popup when you are running administrator stuff asking password or a yes/no)

If it's disabled you can't run stuff as an admin unless you are logged in with an admin account. Log as an admin and follow the same procedure, if there is no "run as admin" even in the admin account you can bypass 1 through 4 and assume that you have full privileges anyway.

When you open a CMD as admin it's set to C:\windows\system32> by default (that text is already there).

No space is required before the text you write.

Remember to write the drive letter of your usb thumbdrive instead of the X: or it will think it has to work on drive X: (that on most systems does not exist) and will return an error.

 

[LMiller7]

Note that with NTFS remote drives you MUST use the Safe Removal Icon in the notification area. Otherwise you risk data loss.

Also be aware that flash drives are the least reliable of modern storage media and cannot be used for primary storage of important files. They should be used primarily as a transport media.

 

[bawldiggle]

My apologies for this belated thank you

bobafetthotmail +1
My post #11 ... after re-reading your directions and risking the process on a spare thumb drive....
... I got carried away with Enter key after I typed "cmd" in the "Search" edit box.
I failed to notice the list of search results as a result of Search:= cmd. ...

Right-Clicked on "cmd.exe" (ie, programs(1) list item
There after ... it all fell into place as you instructed.
----------
LMiller7 +1
Safe Removal:
After years of sometimes difficult/sticky storage devices (and once I lost some data) for two years I have used the commercial version of "USB Safely Remove". It tells me where the problem is rather than Windows bland "device cannot be removed". Progress bar "shows" me something is happening.
My employees and significant other love it. Happy campers are happy workers.
(With Windows safe removal I could never tell if Windows was doing anything or Uncle Bill had nodded off.)

Thumb Drives:
Thank you for the advice. I have been using a thumb drive with 4,388 txt files of code snippets + info.
(Fifteen years of accumulated VBA/VBScript/formulas/etc stuff)
Have now moved all those txt files onto an external pocket HDD.
Not as quick as the thumb drive but now more secure.
Thank you. ++1
----------
One trick I learnt after reformatting an external storage device (to clear all data) ...
ie, WinExp > Drive-letter > RClick > Format ...
• Remove the USB device after reformatting then reconnect to populate the device with any data.
Else Windows does not allow safely-remove.
I don't know if the same applies to "FileSystem" change

 

[bawldiggle]

Solution

How I did it! With homage to "bobafetthotmail "

   Note

- modifies storage device's File System
- converting FAT32 to NTFS
- does not affect (nor delete) data files
Start > Search:= cmd
- on list of search results
cmd.exe > RClick
"Run as Administrator" ... LClick
User Account Control (UAC) ... alert
[Yes] ... Click
- Command prompt screen opens with ...
C:\Windows\System32>_
- then type Convert x: /FS:NTFS ... where "x" = drive device to be changed
ie, one line example: C:\Windows\System32>_Convert f: /FS:NTFS
(where "f" is the target drive)
[Enter] key