It has been pointed out that cavitation occurs in a nozzle of a fuel injector for a diesel engine and affects the injected spray. In the nozzle, a so-called string cavitation, which appears almost along the nozzle axis, has been observed. However, the mechanism and condition of its formation as well as its effects on injected spray are not well understood. Furthermore, the effects of injector needle lift on string cavitation and injected liquid jet are not clarified. Due to the difficulty in the visualization of cavitation flow in a tiny nozzle with an extremely high speed and high pressure, visualization of cavitation in a scaled-up nozzle is conducted to understand how it forms and affects the atomization of the injected liquid jet. Cylindrical nozzles with an asymmetric inflow, which represent multi-hole nozzle, is used in order to reveal the effects of nozzle geometry on string cavitation and liquid jet deformation. Effect of needle lift is also examined by changing the gap between needle wall and its seat. High speed camera is used to capture and to clearly observe the sequence of string cavitation. As a result, we obtained a cavitation regime map which takes needle lift as a major parameter. Formation of a string cavitation and a swirling hollow cone liquid skirt was observed in cylindrical nozzle with low needle lift. Lower needle lift enhances string cavitation and increases jet angle. On the other hand, cavitation and a liquid jet at high needle lift show same behaviors with those observed in a symmetric single hole nozzle. Effect of upper-volume width was also examined and the result shows that string cavitation occurs only at very low needle lift. These results suggest that string cavitation is induced by an instability of the lateral inflow into a nozzle.