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.
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.
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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.
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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Formatting a USB drive is no different than formatting any other driveHow to Format a New Internal Hard Drive or Solid State DriveHow to Format a New Internal Hard Drive or Solid State DriveIf you have a new HDD or SSD, you should format it. Through formatting, you can wipe old data, malware, bloatware, and you can change the file system. Follow our step-by-step process.Read More. But how often have you actually formatted a drive and did you ever wonder what the various options mean?
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Most of us go with the default settings without second-guessing their logic. Naturally, optimal settings depend on the type of hardware to be formatted and what you are planning to do with it.
This article will help you make the best choice. It explains what each option does and which one is best suited for your drive and expected use.
How to Format a USB Drive in Windows
Whether you’re running Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10, the steps are essentially the same.
The formatting options you can customize are File system, Allocation unit size, Volume label, and Format options. You can also Restore device defaults in case your custom settings aren’t working.
To format your drive, you simply make your selection, click Start, followed by OK to confirm that you really want to erase all data and the drive will be formatted.
However, before you proceed with formatting, you will want to understand what each of these options actually means. So let’s go through them one by one.
Which File System to Choose?
In Windows 10, you will see a maximum of four different file systems: NTFS, FAT, FAT32, and exFATFAT32 vs. exFAT: What's the Difference and Which One Is Better?FAT32 vs. exFAT: What's the Difference and Which One Is Better?A file system is the tool that lets an operating system read data on any hard drive. Many systems use FAT32, but is that the right one, and is there a better option?Read More. You will actually not see FAT and FAT32 if your drive is larger than 32 GB. So what is the difference between those file systems and which one should you choose? Let’s look at the benefits of each.
NTFS Compared to FAT & FAT32:
FAT & FAT32 Compared to NTFS:
exFAT Compared to FAT & FAT32:
Due to its nature, FAT or better yet FAT32 are suitable for drives smaller than 32 GB and in an environment where you never need to store files larger than 2 or 4 GB, respectively. In other words, any regular sized hard drive (60 GB +) should be formatted with NTFS.
However, due to the way NTFS works it is not recommended for flash drives, even when they are bigger than 32 GB. This is where exFAT comes in. It unites the essential advantages of FAT (small, fast) and NTFS (large file size supported) in a way that is optimal for flash drives.
Keep in mind though that FAT and FAT32 are the only file systems that are cross-platform compatible. NTFS is supported by Linux, but it requires a hack or third party application to work on the Mac. exFAT, on the other hand, is supported as of OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), but you need drivers to read it on Linux.
If for compatibility or speed reasons you want to go with FAT or FAT32, always go with FAT32, unless you are dealing with a device of 2 GB or smaller.
Which Allocation Unit Size Works Best?
Hard drives are organized in clusters and the allocation unit size describes the size of a single cluster. The file system records the state of each cluster, i.e. free or occupied. Once a file or a portion of a file is written to a cluster, the cluster is occupied, regardless of whether or not there is still space.
Hence, larger clusters can lead to more wasted or slack spaceHow to Recover Lost Space on a USB DriveHow to Recover Lost Space on a USB DriveIf your USB drive ever shrinks in capacity, there's a very simple solution you can use to restore all of that lost space.Read More. With smaller clusters, however, the drive becomes slower as each file is broken up into smaller pieces and it takes much longer to draw them all together when the file is accessed.
Thus the optimal allocation unit size depends on what you want to do with your USB drive. If you want to store large files on that drive, a large cluster size is better as the drive will be faster. If, however, you want to store small files or run programs off your flash drive, a smaller cluster size will help preserve space.
Rule of thumb: large drive and/or large files = large allocation unit size
For a 500 MB USB flash drive, rather select 512 bytes (FAT32) or 32 kilobytes (FAT). On a 1 TB external hard drive select 64 kilobytes (NTFS).
What Is a Volume Label?
The volume label simply is the name of the drive. It’s optional and you can basically name your drive anything you want. However, there are a few rules to follow, depending on the file system you’re going to format with.
NTFS:
FAT:
You can use spaces, regardless of the file system.
The question now is, how are you going to fill that freshly formatted USB drive? You should definitely own a USB repair toolkit! Don’t have enough sticks for all those ideas? These are the fastest USB flash drives5 of the Fastest and Best USB 3.0 Flash Drives5 of the Fastest and Best USB 3.0 Flash DrivesWhich are the fastest USB 3.0 flash drives you can buy? Here are five of the best, ranging from $20 to $200.Read More money can buy.
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Which Format Options Do We Recommend?
During a normal format, files are removed from the drive and the drive is scanned for bad sectors. During the Quick Format, only the files are removed and no scan is performed. Hence go with that option if you don’t have time and are dealing with a healthy or new drive.
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If you found this article helpful, you might also want to know how to fix write protection errorsHow to Fix the Disk is Write Protected USB ErrorHow to Fix the Disk is Write Protected USB ErrorIs your USB drive throwing up a disk write protection error? In this article, we explain what that is and how you can fix it.Read More, how to reformat an external hard drive without losing data, or how to format a write-protected USB driveHow to Format a Write Protected USB Flash DriveHow to Format a Write Protected USB Flash DriveCame across a write protected flash drive? Here's how to format your write protected USB flash drive and start using it again.Read More.
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What are your experiences with formatting USB drives and what are your preferred settings?
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Explore more about: Disk Partition, Tech Support, USB, USB Drive.
To get started, you will need to connect the USB device that you intend to work with to the computer, so the utility can detect it and display it in its main screen. Users simply need to specify the USB device they wish to format, select the file system and assign the volume a label, then optionally choose quick format or enable compression. One of the differences between USB Drive Format Tool and the regular formatting tool found in Windows is the fact that this freeware allows users to securely erase data on USB drives with 12 algorithms of industrial strength, while the Windows version does not provide this option to wipe any disk drive.
Moreover, the free tool can be used to format USB storage devices that cannot be formatted by Windows; anyone who encounters this problem 'windows was unable to complete the format' might use this tool to repair the USB drives that are behaving badly. Users can easily recover any USB Flash drive to its full capacity by removing any tracks of malicious software, preloaded software, pop-up ads, or hidden disk partitions that cannot be removed in the traditional way. Furthermore, one also has the possibility of creating a DOS startup USB drive, or making a bootable USB stick to setup Windows, by either using a Microsoft Windows Setup CD/DVD, or an ISO image file located at a specific path. The conversion from ISO to USB is straightforward; the software helps you write the ISO image file to USB disk. You only need to select the ISO file you want to burn, and select the USB flash drive, then the software can quickly burn the entire ISO file. Meanwhile, you can create bootable USB disk with a USB flash drive. The software has been tested with many storage device units for safety and stability.
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