How to use ReadyBoost - Discussion

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Nice Article Ian

ReadyBoost is a great way to add non-volatile flash memory that serves as an additional memory cache, easy to install and uninstall. Thanks Ian clear and precise !.

Will this work for a flash drive that's FAT32 formatted? It is a 16GB drive or stick or whatever it's called, no brand name is on it. I have a genuine Kingston 4GB, but that one is for photos.

I checked but Windows 7 tells me that it cannot use a FAT32 formatted drive so I had to reformat my flash to NTFS

This was an el cheapo flash drive that was given to me when making a purchase. I don't even know how to format it to NTFS.

Plug the USB into your computer, find it in your Windows Explorer and Right-Click. There should be an option for Format. Select this and then select File System and there should be a drop menu for the NTFS file type. Select that and Format Away!

I've done that and just done it again, but it said that Windows was unable to complete the format. It will allow a exFAT format, but then it shows the drive is full. Either the drive is defective, or it was no good from the start. I've never stored anything on it, so I can't say one way or the other that it ever was good.

I've seen the following suggestion on other sites, never tried it myself:

1. Download and install the HP Drive Key Boot Utility
2. Open the desktop icon and select the correct flash drive under device
3. Select the file system you want to format to (FAT, FAT32, NTFS)
4. Tick Quick Format
5. Click start

Officially this software (HP Drive Key Boot Utility) is meant for HP disks, but unofficially it seems to work fine at formatting most flash media, even digital camera cards