#Windows tool usb format full#
#Windows tool usb format windows#

Check the Perform a quick format option.

In the 'Volume label' setting, confirm the friendly name of the flash drive.

Use the Default option in the 'Allocation unit size' drop-down menu.

Quick note: You can only use 'NTFS' or 'FAT32.' If you need to format the drive using 'exFAT,' you will need to use Command Prompt or PowerShell.

Click the Storage page on the right side.

To reformat a USB drive through the Disks & volumes settings, use these steps:

#Windows tool usb format windows#

Windows 11 also comes with the 'Disks & volumes' settings, a modern version of the Disk Management tool that allows you to manage drives, including the ability to format USB flash drives. Once you complete the steps, the USB flash drive will erase and format to store files again. This process could take a long time, depending on the capacity.

#Windows tool usb format full#

If you clear the option, the tool will perform a full format, scanning for bad and writing zeros in all sectors to delete all the data. Quick note: The 'Quick format' option only deletes the file system table and the root folder, but the data may still be recoverable.Under the 'Format options' section, select the Quick format option.In the 'Volume label' field, confirm a drive name that will appear on File Explorer.Use the default selection in the 'Allocation unit size' drop-down menu.If you use the flash drive on Linux, 'FAT32' is your best option.

If you want to make the storage usable on other systems, such as macOS, use the 'exFAT' option.

Quick tip: The NTFS option has been designed for Windows.

You will be presented with a warning explaining that the files on your USB flash drive will be erased click okay, only if you've backed up your files, and that is it. Select the file system you desire and click start. You can however choose whatever file system you would like. We recommend going with exFAT as the file system since it doesn't have a 4GB file limitation like FAT32 does, but it will also work on Apple computers, Linux computers, and of course Windows. Most of the time when formatting external media like USB flash drives and external hard drives the goal is to move to a more modern file system in order to store files larger than 4GB which is a problem with FAT32. The most important of these is the File System option. The format dialog box has a few options in it. Step 3: Choose the appropriate file system and start the format Notice we have only one USB flash drive plugged in. You might want to unplug other flash drives and removable media to avoid confusion. Right click your USB flash drive and select format from the resulting dialog box. Once you have File Explorer opened you will see on the right hand side a list of devices and locations. Step 2: Right click your drive and select format Once open, locate your USB flash drive, or external hard drive, you would like to format, in our case it is drive D: Open File Explorer either by clicking on the file folder icon on your taskbar or with the keyboard shortcut combination Win + E.

In the File System drop down, select the exFAT.

In the left pane right click the name of your USB drive.

Insert your USB flash drive into your computer (obviously).

Here is a brief summary of the steps necessary to format a flash drive on Windows 10, or any other windows version back to Windows XP. So before doing so, back up your import files! Warning: Formatting anything will erase all the data contained on that drive. It also does not have a 4GB max file size like some other file systems do.

We recommend exFAT because of its ability to work on almost any system including Apple OS X, Linux, and obviously Windows. We are going to be formatting our USB flash drive using the exFAT file system, however, this guide will work for any file system you choose. While this guide is specifically for Windows 10, it will work for all versions of Windows from XP and up. The same thing is true when it comes to formatting a flash drive on Windows or any removable media like an external hard drive. Windows, in general, is an extremely user friendly operating system.