Unable to format your USB drive, here’s how to fix it

USB drives have become one of the handiest modes to carry around a chunk of data. The device comes in various shape and sizes and it is an inexpensive piece of hardware that can carry a significantly large amount of data at a time. Be it an important document or any multimedia content. Over time, the USB drives are getting smaller and smaller day-by-day. However, the storage capacity has increased and are available in 16GB to 1TB.

Despite all the technological advancements, there is one problem that most of the people suffer from their USB storage drives that are not able to format it using their Windows computer. Considering it as an electronic device, there are chances that something might have gone wrong with the drive or the drive has got corrupted. In case you are facing a similar issue, then we have put together a few ways that can help people solve this issue.

Pre-requisites:

A working Windows PC with USB port or dongle

Working internet connectivity (optional)

Method 1: Scan the drive for errors

Windows comes with a built-in feature to check any drive for errors. The utility scans the disk for bad sectors and other possible errors causing the issue and tries to fix it automatically.

1.Open My Computer or This PC

2.Right-click on the USB drive and select the option ‘Properties’

3.Click on the ‘Tools’ tab from the top of the Properties page

4.Look for the option ‘Check Now’ and click on it

5.Choose the option ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and ‘Scan for an attempt recovery for bad sectors

6.Click on the ‘Start’ button to initiate the process

7.Wait for the process to complete

8.Once done, try formatting your drive

Method 2: Using command prompt

In case, the first method did not work for you, using command prompt can help you format the drive.

1.Connect the pen drive to the computer and make sure to remove all the other USB drives connected to the computer at the moment

2.Open Start menu and type CMD

3.Right click on it and run it with administrative rights

4.Then type ‘diskpart' and hit enter

5.It will list all the devices connected to the computer. Note down the number of the USB drive

6.Now, type in ‘select disk disk_(number) and press Enter

7.Now, type ‘Clean’ and hit Enter to format your drive

Note: If both the method fails to format your device, there are several third-party software available that can help to format your drive. If nothing works, then it’s time to buy a new pendrive.