In Windows 10, you can format a USB flash drive, and this feature is useful in a variety of situations. For example, you may sometimes need to format the external driver to make sure there is no malicious code in it; Or you may be forced to do so due to misreading.

 Sometimes the flash drive file system may not be compatible with your device configuration. You may want to get rid of the files on the USB flash drive, and you may not want any of your personal information to be displayed on someone else’s system. 

There are several situations that you may need to use Flash format to solve.

According to a Windows Central article, for whatever reason, Windows 10 offers several tools that you can use to format all types of storage, including USB flash drives. This report introduces various methods for formatting drives, including File Explorer, Disk Management, Command Prompt, and PowerShell. 

In this tutorial, we will explain step by step what exactly needs to be done to format the USB flash drive with any of the above methods.

Warning: The instructions in this guide will delete all files on the selected drive. If you have an important file, you should back it up before continuing and put it in a secure folder.

Learn USB flash format through File Explorer

To format a USB flash drive using File Explorer in Windows 10, follow these steps:

• First open File Explorer.
• Select This PC on the left side of the screen.
• In the Devices and drives section, right-click on the flash drive and select Format.
• Use the File system drop-down menu and select NTFS.

Note: If you plan to use removable storage (such as USB flash drive) in Windows 10 and macOS, you may want to opt for exFAT for better compatibility.

 If you are thinking of using it on a Linux -based device  , FAT32 is the best choice, even if you are limited to 4 GB files.

• Use the default selection in the Allocation unit size drop-down menu.
• In the Volume label field, confirm the name of the drive that appears in File Explorer. For example, workFlash.
• In the Format options section, select the Quick format option.

Note: The Quick format option only deletes the root file and folder; But the data can be retrieved. If you do not select this option, the full format operation will be performed. Such an operation scans all the different sections and converts them to zero, and eventually all the files and data are completely deleted. As a result, the process may take longer, depending on the size of the drive.

•  Open the Start menu.
• Click the Yes button.
• After completing the steps, the flash drive is ready to save documents, images, videos and other files to the drive.

USB flash drive format via Disk Management

The Disk Management tool provides at least two ways to format a USB flash drive. Using the two methods provided to you, you can delete the storage space to rebuild the filesystem table and delete the content format, or to fix a specific partition to fix the memory problems .

Flash drive format

To use Disk Management for USB drive formatting, use these steps:

• Open the Start menu.
• Search for “Create and format hard disk partitions” and click on the first result to open the disk management tool.
• Right-click on the removable drive and select Format.

• In the Volume label field, enter a name to identify the storage space in File Explorer.
• Use the File system drop-down menu and select NTFS (you can select FAT32 or exFAT depending on your needs).
• In the Allocation unit size drop-down menu, use the Default option.
• Check the Perform a fast format option.

• Check the Enable file and folder compression option (this option is optional).
• Click the OK button.

After completing the steps, the existing files on the drive will be deleted and the data will be re-formatted so that the flash can be stored again.

Clean and format the flash drive

If you encounter any errors or other problems in this area, you can clean the USB drive with Disk Management and do the work from scratch with a new partition and a rebuilt file system.

To clean and format the flash drive, follow these steps:

• Open the Start menu.
• Search for “Create and format hard disk partitions” and click on the first result to open the disk management tool.
• Right-click on the removable drive and select Delete volume.

• Click the Yes button.
• Right-click on the Unallocated option and select New Simple Volume.

• Click the Next button.
• Click the Next button again to use all available space.
• Select the Assign the following drive letter option.
• Use the drop-down menu to select one of the available letters.

Note: If you want to select a letter yourself and enter it manually, it is better to find the option you want in the reverse order of the letters of the alphabet (Z, Y, X, etc.).

•  Click the Next button.
• Select Format this volume with the following settings option.
• In the File system drop-down menu, select NTFS and click on it.

 Note: You can only use NTFS or FAT32 formats using this method. If you want to access exFAT at the end, you must use the Command Prompt or PowerShell methods.

•  In the Allocation unit size drop-down menu, use the Default option.
• In the Volume label field, type a name to quickly identify the flash drive in File Explorer.
• Check the Perform a fast format option. (If you do not do this or uncheck, the formatting is complete, so the process time may increase depending on the amount of storage space.)

• Check the Enable file and folder compression option (this step is optional).
• Click the Next button.
• Click the Finish button.

After completing the steps, a new partition is created and the steps of booting the file system, fixing common problems with the flash drive and other tasks are performed one after another.

If you can’t do the formatting process, your flash is probably broken. In this case, you have to create a new flash drive and use it to move your files. Numerous brands are producing USB flash drives and this product is becoming more advanced.

USB flash drive via PowerShell

You can format the USB flash drive and delete its contents using the PowerShell commands. Or you can use the command-line tool to clear and format the storage space to fix the existing problems.

Formatting a flash drive

To format a USB flash drive using the PowerShell commands, follow these steps:

• Open the Start menu.
• Search for PowerShell, right-click on the first result, and select Run as administrator.
• To run a quick format on the flash drive, type the following command and press Enter:

Format-Volume -DriveLetter DRIVE-LETTER -FileSystem FILE-SYSTEM -NewFileSystemLabel DRIVE-NAME

•  In the command line above, replace DRIVE-LETTER with the drive letter you want to format. Modify the FILE-SYSTEM with FAT32, exFAT or NTFS, and DRIVE-NAME with the name you want the drive to appear in File Explorer.

 For example, the following command code executes drive F with the NTFS filesystem:

 Format-Volume -DriveLetter F -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel workFlash

• To complete the USB flash drive format, type the following command and press Enter (this is optional):

Format-Volume -DriveLetter DRIVE-LETTER -FileSystem FILE-SYSTEM -Full -Force

In the grammatical code, depending on the file system you want to use, DRIVE-LETTER with the drive letter that you want to format it and FILE-SYSTEM with FAT32, or exFAT or NTFS instead.

If you are a Windows 10 user and do not know which option to use, you can select NTFS to do so. If there is a phrase “Full” in the command code, the format is complete.

 For example, in the following command code, the F drive format is fully executed:

 Format-Volume -DriveLetter F -FileSystem NTFS -Full -Force

 After completing the steps, PowerShell will format the storage space with the settings you have specified and you can use it when the process is complete.

How to clean and format the flash drive

To clean and format a USB flash drive with PowerShell command code, use these steps:

• First, open the Start menu.
• Search for PowerShell, right-click on the top result, and select Run as administrator.
• To view the flash drive that you want to modify, type the following command, then press Enter:

 Get-Disk

•  Then type the following command and press Enter:

 Get-Disk DISK-NUMBER | Clear-Disk -RemoveData  

 In the command code above, change the DISK-NUMBER to the number that represents the flash drive you want to format. For example, the following command code selects and cleans Disk 2:

 Get-Disk 2 | Clear-Disk –RemoveData

•  Type Y and press Enter to confirm the function.
• To create a new partition, type the following command and press Enter:

 New-Partition -DiskNumber DISK-NUMBER -UseMaximumSize

 In this command, change the DISK-NUMBER to a number that represents the storage space you want. This example creates a new partition using all the space in drive number 2:

New-Partition -DiskNumber 2 -UseMaximumSize

• To run the formatting process quickly, type the following command and press Enter:

 Get-Partition -DiskNumber DISK-NUMBER | Format-Volume -FileSystem FILE-SYSTEM -NewFileSystemLabel DRIVE-NAME

In this command code, replace DISK-NUMBER with the number that indicates the storage location in the system, then change the FILE-SYSTEM to NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT and DRIVE-NAME as the name on which you want the drive to be displayed in File Explorer. Change. In this example, drive 2 is selected and formatted using the NTFS file system:

Get-Partition -DiskNumber 2 | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel workFlash

• To assign a new letter to the drive, type the following command, then press Enter:

Get-Partition -DiskNumber DISK-NUMBER | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter DRIVE-LETTER

In this command code, replace the DISK-NUMBER number that identifies the memory stored in the system, and change the letter that you want the drive to represent in File Explorer to DRIVE-LETTER . The following example sets E as the drive letter for disk number 2:

 Get-Partition -DiskNumber 2 | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter E

 After completing the steps, PowerShell removes any USB storage information for troubleshooting, including data corruption, protection against unknown drives, and more . Then the steps to create a new partition and configure the file system to store the files begin.

Learn USB flash format with Command Prompt

You can format the USB flash drive via Command Prompt . You can also use this tool to clean the drive and start working with the new partition and file system.

USB flash drive format

Use the following steps to quickly or completely format a USB flash drive with Command Prompt:

• Open the Start menu.
• Search for Command Prompt, right-click on the first result and select Run as administrator.
• To quickly format a USB flash drive, type the following command and press Enter:

 format VOLUME: / v: FLASHDRIVE-LABEL / fs: FILE-SYSTEM / q

The dial, make sure the VOLUME with the letter which represents memory is desired, Flashdrive-LABEL with the name you want to drive in File Explorer appears and FILE-SYSTEM with one of the available options, including FAT32, exFAT or NTFS replace . 

This example executes the fast format of drive E:

format G: / v: workFlash / fs: NTFS / q

•  Press Enter again to continue.
• To complete the USB flash drive format, type the following command and press Enter (this step is optional):

 format VOLUME: / v: FLASHDRIVE-LABEL / fs: FILE-SYSTEM

 This example executes a complete format of drive E:

 format E: / v: “workFlash” / fs: NTFS

•  Press Enter again to continue.

After completing the steps, the drive will be formatted with the settings you specified.

USB flash drive formatting

Clean and format the flash drive with command-line, use these steps:

•  Open the Start menu.
• Search for Command Prompt, right-click on the first result and select Run as administrator.
• To run the diskpart tool, type the following command and press Enter:

 diskpart

•  To view a list of available drives, type the following command and press Enter:

 list disk

•  To select the flash drive you want to delete, type the following command and press Enter:

 select disk DISK-NUMBER

 Be sure to replace the DISK-NUMBER with the number indicating the drive you want to format in the command code. In the example below, the command driver selects the flash driver, which is represented by the number 2.

 select disk 2

•  To clear all memory partitions, type the following command and press Enter:

 clean

•  To create a main partition, type the following command and press Enter:

 create partition primary

• Type the following command to do a quick format and then press Enter:

 format fs = FILE-SYSTEM label = DRIVE-NAME quick

In the command code, replace FILE-SYSTEM with one of NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT . Also replace DRIVE-NAME with the name you want to put on the drive. 

Keep in mind that if you do not specify that you want the process to be done quickly, the formatting will be complete. In this example, the desired memory is quickly formatted using the NTFS file system and renamed to workFlash:

 format fs = NTFS label = workFlash quick

• Type the following command to assign a letter to your drive and press Enter:

 Assign

•  To close diskpart, type the following command and press Enter:

 Exit

 After completing the above steps, the command-line will  remove any information from the USB flash drive . This tool creates a new partition and configures a compatible filesystem to store the data.