Windows 10 Usb Format Tool
RECOMMENDED: Formatting a USB flash drive is a straight-forward job in Windows operating system. In the File Explorer, right-click on the USB drive, click Format, select a file system for the drive, and then click Format button to format the USB drive.
At times, you might not be able to format a USB drive by following the directions mentioned above. You might get “Windows was unable to complete the format” message. If you are getting any error while formatting the drive or if the drive fails to show up in the File Explorer even after assigning a drive letter to it, you can use the Command Prompt to format the USB drive. Complete the given below directions to format the USB drive via Command Prompt in Windows 10. IMPORTANT: Formatting the USB drive will erase all data on it. So, if the data is important, please move all the data to a safe location before proceeding further.
Format USB pen drive via Command Prompt in Windows 10 Step 1:. To do so, type CMD in the Start/taskbar search box, right-click on the Command Prompt entry in the search results, and then click Run as administrator option. Click Yes button when you get the User Account Control screen to continue.
Step 2: In the Command Prompt, execute the following commands one after another. Diskpart Press Enter key to run the Diskpart tool. List Disk Press Enter key.
Now, the DiskPart tool will list all the drives connected to your PC, including your internal drives. Identify the USB drive that you want to format and note down its disk number. For instance, as you can see in the picture, my USB drive’s disk number is 1. If you are not sure, unplug the USB drive, run the Diskpart and list Disk commands. By doing so, you can get know the number of drives before and after connecting the USB drive. Step 4: Execute the following commands now.
Select disk X In the above command, replace “X” with the disk number of the USB drive that you got in Step 2. Clean Hit Enter key. Create partition primary Press Enter key. Format fs=NTFS Quick Hit Enter key. This will format the drive with the NTFS file system. If you wish to use FAT32 file system instead of NTFS, please use Format fs=FAT32 Quick command.
Assign Press Enter key to assign a drive letter to the drive. Exit You may close the Command Prompt window now. The USB drive should now appear in This PC. You might also like to read our article.
For whatever reason, the option to format USB drives larger than 32GB with the FAT32 file system isn’t present in. Here’s how to get around that. RELATED: FAT32 is a, 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. 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.
Windows 10 Usb Format Tool
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: 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 by Ridgecrop Consultants (click the screenshot on that page to download the app).
It’s a, 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 “” 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.
Windows 10 Usb Format Atma
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: format /FS:FAT32 X: 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.