If you have a malfunctioning or corrupted USB drive, formatting it may be the best way to get it back to its original working state. Even if your drive is healthy, you may still want to format it to get rid of the contents there.
This article looks at some ways you can format a USB drive on Windows. If you know some other ways of achieving the same result, tell us about it in the comments section below.
Which File System Should You Use?
Before you format your USB drive, you need to think about which file system to use. File Systems are simply ways of organising data on a storage device (such as hard drives or SD Cards), and support for various file systems varies depending on your operating system.
Windows 10 offers three file system options when formatting a USB drive: FAT32, NTFS and exFAT. Here is the breakdown of the pros and cons of each filesystem.
Pros | Cons | Best Used For | |
---|---|---|---|
Fat 32 | * Compatible with all major operating systems. * Less memory usage. | * Cannot handle single files larger 4GB. *Limited partition size (up to 32GB). | * Removable storage devices such as USB Flash Drives. * Devices that need to be plugged into a variety of operating systems. |
NTFS | * Can create partitions larger than 32GB. * Can read/write files larger than 4GB. * Supports on-the-fly file encryption. | * Limited cross-platform compatibility. | * Internal hard drives. * Windows system drives. |
exFAT | * Provides an unlimited file and partition size. | * You may need to install drivers to get exFAT compatibility on Linux. | * External hard drives. * Flash drives if you want to work with files larger than 4GB. |
Now, let’s take a look at some ways you can format your USB drive on Windows 10.
Method 1: Format USB Drive using File Explorer
This is the easiest way and simply requires you to plug in your USB Drive, open the Windows File Explorer and right click your drive to view a number of actions that you can perform.
Clicking the “format” option will open a new window where you can configure the available options before formating your drive.
I will be going with the NTFS file system because I need cross-platform compatibility (Windows and Linux), and I may need to transfer files larger than 4GB on occasion.
As for allocation size, it all depends on what you want to do with your drive. If you have a large drive (such as a 500GB hard drive), a large allocation size such as 32 kilobytes will make your device faster, but storage space may fill up quicker. For small drives, such as 4GB or 8GB flash drives, a smaller allocation size will help conserve space.
I’m going with 4kb (4096 bytes) as my allocation size because I work with small files most of the time, and my flash drive is just 16GB.
The volume label is simply the name of your USB Drive. You can name your drive anything you want.
Once you have selected the options, you can click the format button to begin the formatting process. Ticking the “Quick Format” checkbox means that your drive will not be scanned for bad sectors. If you have a malfunctioning drive, you might want to uncheck that box for a more thorough scanning.
A success message will be displayed on the screen once the formatting is completed.
Method 2: Format USB Drive Using Command Prompt
Another method of formatting your USB drive is by using Diskpart, a command prompt utility.
All commands given below should be entered without quotes. A full screenshot of the steps is shown below.
1. Search for the command prompt on the Start Menu or just type cmd
. Right-click the command prompt icon and select “Run as Administrator.”
2. Once the command prompt opens up, type in the following command:
3. Next, type the following command to view the active drives on your machine:
It will also show you the disk numbers and storage parameters for all active drives.
4. Use the select
command to choose your USB drive. In this case I entered select disk 1
because my USB drive is disk number 1 as seen in the previous step. Make sure you don’t select your internal hard drive or you could destroy your system.
5. Next, type in the following command:
It should display a success message on your screen.
6. Next, type in the following command:
This will create and activate the specified partition.
7. Now it’s time to format your drive. All you need to do is enter the following command:
If you want to use FAT32 or exFAT, simply replace “ntfs” with either of the two formats in the command. And don’t forget to change the name of the drive.
8. Lastly, enter the following command:
Then exit the command prompt.
Windows 10 Format Usb Fat32
Your USB Drive should be cleanly formatted and ready to use.
I hope this short tutorial has helped you figure out some different ways to format your USB drives. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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For whatever reason, the option to format USB drives larger than 32GB with the FAT32 file system isn’t present in the regular Windows format tool. Here’s how to get around that.
RELATED:What File System Should I Use for My USB Drive?
FAT32 is a solid file system for external drives, so long as you don’t plan to use files over 4GB in size. If you do need those larger file sizes, you’ll need to stick with something like NTFS or exFAT. The advantage to using FAT32 is portability. Every major operating system and most devices support it, making it great for drives you need to access from different systems. Specifications put out by manufacturers on file systems as they pertain to drive size created the myth that FAT32 can only be used to format drives between 2 GB and 32 GB, and that is likely why native tools on Windows—and other systems—have that limit. The truth is that FAT32 has a theoretical volume size limit of 16 TB, with a current practical limit of about 8 TB—plenty for most USB drives.
We’re going to show you two ways to format larger USB drives with FAT32. One method uses PowerShell (or the Command Prompt), the other a free, third-party tool.
Format Large USB Drives with FAT32 by Using FAT32 Format
RELATED:What Is a “Portable” App, and Why Does It Matter?
The easiest way to format larger USB drives with FAT32—if you’re willing to download a free, third party app—is to use the GUI version of FAT32 Format by Ridgecrop Consultants (click the screenshot on that page to download the app). It’s a portable app, so you won’t need to install anything. Just run the executable file.
In the “FAT32 Format” window, select the drive to format and type a volume label if you want to. Select the “Quick Format” option, and then click the “Start” button.
A window pops up to warn you that all data on the drive will be lost. Click “OK” to format the drive.
Formatting with this tool is much quicker than the command line method described in the next section. This tool took a few seconds to format our 64GB USB drive that took us over an hour in PowerShell.
One thing to note here: you’ll need to close any open File Explorer windows before you format the drive. If you don’t, the tool will interpret the drive as being used by another app and formatting will fail. If this happens to you, just close the File Explorer windows and try again. No need to relaunch the tool or anything.
Format Large USB Drives with FAT32 by Using PowerShell
You can format USB drives larger than 32GB with FAT32 by using the format
command in PowerShell or Command Prompt—the command uses the same syntax in both tools. The downside to doing this is that it can take a long time. Formatting our 64GB USB drive took almost over an hour, and we’ve heard some people complain that it can take many hours for bigger drives. Aside from the length of time, you also won’t know if formatting failed—unlikely but possible—until the process is done.
Still, if you don’t want to—or can’t—download a third-party app, using the format
command is pretty straightforward. Open PowerShell with administrative privileges by hitting Windows+X on your keyboard, and then selecting “PowerShell (Admin)” from the Power User menu.
At the PowerShell prompt, type the following command (replacing X:
with whatever drive letter you want to format), and then hit Enter:
Like we said, it can take a long time to format a drive this way, so if you can use the third-party download we described in the last section, you should.
Hi Mike,
Thank you for posting the query on Microsoft Community. I am glad to assist you on this.
Try with the below methods and check.
Method 1:
Remove and reinstall all USB controllers.
- Open Device Manager by pressing Windows key + X and select device manager from the list. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
- In the list of hardware categories, find and expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
- Right-click every device under the Universal Serial Bus controllers node, and then click Uninstall to remove them one at a time.
- Restart the computer, and let the USB controllers get reinstalled.
- Plug in the removable USB device, and then test to make sure that the issue is resolved.
Method 2
The issue could be if the drivers are not updated or get corrupted. So, try to install all of the Windows updates available and if issue persists, try to update the Display drivers by following the steps provided in the article mentioned below.
If issue still persists, then install the drivers for Windows 8/8.1 from the manufacturer's website in compatibility mode and check if that works.
Make older programs compatible with this version of Windows
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Reference:
Method 3
If issue persists try the steps provided to uninstall the USB device from Device Manager, uninstall the device drivers from program list and then download the latest drivers from the manufacturer's website.
Step 1:
Uninstall the Device from Device Manager
- Open Device Manger by clicking on Windows key + X and selecting Device manager from the list.
- Expand the USB section.
- Find the USB device.
- Right click USB and select Uninstall.
- Select the check box delete the driver software for this device.
- Reboot the computer after uninstall process has finished.
Step 2:
Uninstall the Device Drivers from Program List in Control Panel
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- Click on start, select Control Panel
- Now click on Programs and select Programs and Features.
- Find the USB.
- Right click USB driver and select Uninstall.
- Reboot the computer after the uninstall process has finished.
Step 3:
Download and install the latest drivers for the USB from the manufacturer website
Hope this would help. If issue still persists post back with current status of your computer and result of proposed suggestion, we will be happy to assist you.
You never know when you’ll need a Windows recovery drive in order to restore your system to a pristine state, so the time to make one is now—and it’s very easy to do.
A recovery drive is similar to the media you’d receive if you bought a prebuilt system. Back in the day, PCs would ship with a CD or DVD that included an image of the system as it left the factory. If your PC’s OS went sideways, you could easily restore it to the way things were on day one (though you’d lose all of your subsequently created data and applications, obviously). Nowadays manufacturers usually just put an image of the system as it left the factory on a hidden partition of your main drive.
A Windows recovery disk builds on this idea. In addition to letting you reinstall Windows, it includes several troubleshooting tools, which can be lifesavers if your system won’t boot.
Some of these tools used to be part of the OS. If your PC failed to boot you were presented with a menu allowing you to try and boot into Safe Mode, or use “last known good configuration.” That’s no longer the case with Windows 10. Now you need these tools to reside on a separate, bootable USB drive, and every person running Windows should keep one in a safe place with the label “in case of emergency.”
Here’s how you create one and what it can do for you.
First, obtain an 8GB to 16GB USB drive and insert it into an open USB port on your PC. Next, go into Windows’ Control panel (right-clicking the Windows icon is the easiest way) and type create a recovery drive into the search bar. The manual method would be to go to System & Security > Security & Maintenance > Recovery.
You may need to enter your admin password to go further. In the resulting dialog box, check the box labeled Back up system files to the recovery drive.
With your recovery drive created, you’ll have to boot from it in order to use it. How your PC boots from USB varies according to your PC’s age and motherboard, but typically you can press one of the F-keys during boot to arrive at a boot selection window. From there you select the USB drive you’re using, and it should proceed to boot from the recovery drive.
When you successfully boot from it you’ll see a screen that offers a Troubleshoot option. Click on that and you will see the following: Recover from a drive, and Advanced options (and possibly Factory Image Restore, if available).
The first option lets you reinstall Windows. Note that it says you will lose all your data and installed applications. This is a clean installation of Windows, not a restore from backup or something along those lines. This is the nuclear option, in other words.
The second option, which is labeled Advanced options, lets you fix your Windows installation in several ways, and brings you to the following menu:
The Advanced options menu allows you to do the following:
System Restore: Use this to revert your PC to a happier time, when things were working normally. This does not affect your data, but it does affect installed programs as it replaces the registry with an earlier version.
System Image Recovery: If you’ve used the image backup tool in Windows 10, this would be where it would come in handy. You can restore the image of your PC at the time you created the image, which includes all your data and installed programs at that time.
Startup Repair: This is sort of a “black box” in that it tries to fix whatever issue is preventing the system from booting, but it doesn’t tell you what it’s doing or, if successful, what the problem was. This is the first thing you should try, as it’s the quickest and least invasive.
Command Prompt: This can be useful for a wide array of tricks and tactics, most especially running the SFC /Scannow command to scan and fix corrupted system files. We all know the command prompt is a wizard’s toolbox, and if you know what you’re doing, the possibilities are almost endless.
Go Back to the Previous Build: Though worded a bit cryptically, this lets you revert your PC to the previous build of Windows, meaning the one before whatever update turned everything pear-shaped.
As you can see, it’s quite useful to have one of these recovery drives handy. Do yourself a favor and make one now. And if for some reason you can’t create a recovery disk in Windows 10, we have some suggestions on that front as well.
Here's how to create a bootable Windows installation USB drive starting with a Windows .iso file or a Windows Setup DVD.
Format Usb Drive Mac
Note
For new Windows 10 installations, we've got a tool that does this for you. See Download Windows 10.
What you need
- Windows 10 install .iso or DVD
- USB flash drive with at least 5GB free space. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesn't have any important files on it.
- Technician PC - Windows PC that you'll use to format the USB flash drive
- Destination PC - A PC that you'll install Windows on
Step 1 - Format the drive and set the primary partition as active
Connect the USB flash drive to your technician PC.
Open Disk Management: Right-click on Start and choose Disk Management.
Format the partition: Right-click the USB drive partition and choose Format. Select the FAT32 file system to be able to boot either BIOS-based or UEFI-based PCs.
Set the partition as active: Right-click the USB drive partition and click Mark Partition as Active.
Note
If Mark Partition as Active isn't available, you can instead use diskpart to select the partition and mark it active.
Step 2 - Copy Windows Setup to the USB flash drive
Use File Explorer to copy and paste the entire contents of the Windows product DVD or ISO to the USB flash drive.
Optional: add an unattend file to automate the installation process. For more information, see Automate Windows Setup.
Step 3 - Install Windows to the new PC
Connect the USB flash drive to a new PC.
Turn on the PC and press the key that opens the boot-device selection menu for the computer, such as the Esc/F10/F12 keys. Select the option that boots the PC from the USB flash drive.
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Windows Setup starts. Follow the instructions to install Windows.
Remove the USB flash drive.
Troubleshooting: file copy fails
This can happen when the Windows image file is over the FAT32 file size limit of 4GB. When this happens:
Copy everything except the Windows image file (sourcesinstall.wim) to the USB drive (either drag and drop, or use this command, where D: is the mounted ISO and E: is the USB flash drive.)
Split the Windows image file into smaller files, and put the smaller files onto the USB drive:
Note, Windows Setup automatically installs from this file, so long as you name it install.swm.