Windows Can't Read or Format Usb Drive

Scenario

"I noticed something weird when all of the sudden I couldn't delete files off of the flash drive. I tried to format it and it either stays in a formatting country (e.g. lite on, but getting nowhere) accept to cancel out or it says information technology is write-protected. Later on I 'browse and set up' I tin can admission the files on the bulldoze fine, only I can't format this flash bulldoze, just can't do anything more than read them. What's wrong with information technology? What should I do? Is there whatsoever suggestion?"

Why yous tin't format flash drive?

USB flash drives are unremarkably used to salve data. Sometimes, you might take to format your USB flash drive to either wipe it or set up errors, etc. Generally, the formatting process can go smoothly via File Explorer, Deejay Direction or Diskpart Control. Yet, once in a while, Windows was unable to format flash drive. And this upshot may happen equally a issue of following reasons:

1. The USB flash bulldoze is infected by virus and malware;

two. The flash drive has some bad sectors;

iii. The flash drive has been damaged physically;

4. The wink bulldoze is read only or write-protected.

How to set "Windows can't format wink drive" effect?

How to solve the problem of Windows unable to format flash bulldoze? Here provides you lot iv methods to fix this consequence.

Method one. Eliminate possible virus

USB flash drives are very portable and can be continued to reckoner easily via USB drive to backup or transfer data, so many users oftentimes carry them around and apply them on various computers, making it like shooting fish in a barrel to infect virus. In this case, y'all can make use of a reliable anti-virus tool to remove malware or virus.

After that, you tin attempt to format the wink drive again. If you all the same cannot format the USB flash bulldoze, keep to the following methods, please.

Method 2. Check and ready bad sectors on the wink bulldoze

Every bit we all know, the flash drive and other storage devices consist of sectors, the smallest unit for data storing. Files stored on them ordinarily occupy discontinuous sectors. The bad sectors means the sectors are damaged and cannot be read or written, then the formatting procedure can exist disrupted. To check and fix bad sectors, y'all can use CHKDSK.exe tool.

1. Printing "Win+ R" keys on your keyboard to open up "Run" dialog, input "cmd" and press Enter to open Command Prompt window.

two. In the window, enter "chkdsk thou: /f /r /x" and hitting on Enter to execute this command.

Notation: replace 1000 with the drive alphabetic character of your flash drive.

Method 3. Disable write protection aspect before formatting

As well, Windows will be unable to format wink bulldoze which is write-protected. But the wink drive can become write-protected due to different causes such as concrete lock, being set into read only mode, or wrong registry settings or corrupted file arrangement. Dissimilar causes need different solutions.

ane. Check the physical switch

Have a check at your flash drive at start, if there is a physical lock switch on the side, you lot can slide the switch to the unlock surface area. And so, connect information technology to your computer, and you can format it in your need.

two. Clear read-simply attributes with Diskpart utility

Connect your flash bulldoze to the figurer at offset, and make sure it tin exist detected.

1. Press "Windows" + "R" combination on your keyboard to open the Run dialog.

two. Then blazon "diskpart" in the Run dialog box, click "OK" to open the Diskpart Command Prompt.

3. Type "listing deejay" and press "Enter", all the disks continued to the calculator will be displayed.

4. Blazon "select disk n", here north refers to the drive letter of your wink drive. Then, press "Enter" to proceed.

five. Blazon "attributes disk clear readonly", diskpart will alter your USB's properties so that it is no longer read-but.

After that, you can format flash bulldoze in your need.

3. Remove write protection through editting the registry

Connect your flash bulldoze to the computer at starting time, and brand sure it can be detected.

1. Open up Run dialog, type "regedit" and hit Enter or click "OK" to open the Registry Editor.

2. Access to the following path:

"Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies"

3. Double click the "WriteProtect" and alter the value from 1 to 0.

iv. Shut Regedit and restart your calculator. Connect your USB drive again and you should be able to format it successfully.

Method 4. Fix "can't format flash drive" error with CMD

Connect your flash drive to the computer at first, and make sure information technology can be detected.

i. Click "outset" and type "command prompt".

2. Then, right click "command prompt" and select "run as administrator".

three. Later that, type "diskpart" and press "Enter". So execute the below commands in turn:

• listing disk

• select disk n

• clean

• create partition primary

• format fs=fat32 quick: If you want to format to NTFS, type "format fs=ntfs quick".

Method 5. Force format write protected flash drive via AOMEI Sectionalisation Assistant

If Windows xi/10/8/seven cannot format the flash drive because its file arrangement is corrupted, you can plough to a 3rd party hard drive formatting software. Hither we recommend Gratis AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

This flash drive format cost can provide y'all many powerful functions like format sectionalisation. You can apply it to format USB flash drive, SD card, as well as other storage drive in Windows 11/10/eight/7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. Too, when Windows 10 cannot format flash drive to FAT32 for its big capacity (surpassing 32GB), this software is too very useful since information technology breaks out this limitation and is able to format a large hard drive such as 2TB to FAT32.

Therefore, no matter you lot cannot format wink drive to FAT32 or NTFS in Windows, this freeware can get it fixed. Before you format, please backup any necessary files in advance because all data will be deleted.

1. Download, install and run it on your Windows PC. Right click the wink drive and choose "Format Sectionalization".

2. In the pop-up window, choose "FAT32" file organization. And you also can specify "Cluster Size" under file system if you lot need to. And so, click "OK".

3. Afterward that, it will go back to the main interface. Preview the virtual result and click "Apply" > "Go along" subsequently your confirmation.

The formatting progress won't have you besides much fourth dimension. Of course, the more data on your flash drive, the more fourth dimension the formatting will take.

Conclusion

When Windows cannot format wink drive as normal, you can follow these simple steps. AOMEI Partition Banana can exist the best flash drive format tool. Besides, information technology also provides you lot many other powerful functions such as resize/move/delete partition, disk copy, wipe hard drive and and so on. If you want to convert FAT32 to NTFS without losing data, the feature convert to NTFS can help you.

If you want to enjoy more avant-garde functions like extending NTFS system partition without reboot, migrating Bone to SSD, deeply erasing SSD, convert boot disk to MBR or GPT without data loss, you can upgrade to AOMEI Sectionalisation Banana Professional person to solve this issue.

Windows Can't Read or Format Usb Drive

Source: https://www.diskpart.com/articles/cant-format-flash-drive-1881.html