Format command parameters for a flash drive. How to format a flash drive or hard drive if it is not formatted
Hello everyone, in this review I will tell and show you how to format a flash drive or HDD even if they are not formatted.
In the last article we made our own. Today we’ll talk about ways USB formatting devices and hard drives.
To do this, we need a flash drive or hard drive of any size and some free time. In the examples I will have portable usb device 8 GB, you may have other sizes.
Let's look at three formatting methods using Windows:
- Standard
- Disk management
- Command line
Standard Formatting
We connect the flash drive to our computer and go to My Computer.
Select our device, right-click on it and select Format from the pop-up menu.
We indicate file system, select the formatting method quick or normal and click Start. You can also choose to restore default settings.
Warning about data destruction, if there are files that need to be saved, do so, otherwise they will be deleted. Click OK to start formatting.
There may be a notification that this disk is being used by another program or process, click YES.
Formatting begins, if you have little time, I recommend using the quick one (clearing the table of contents), if you have time, you can do normal formatting.
When finished, a window will appear - formatting is complete, click OK and close all open windows.
How to format a flash drive or hard drive in the standard way | website
Formatting via Disk Management
There are times when formatting a flash drive or hard drive standard means is not possible and various errors appear. To do this, there is a second formatting method through disk management.
Right-click on my computer and go to Management.
Go to the Disk Management tab.
We select our device, in my case it is Disk number 1, right-click on it and go to Format again.
They warn that this is an active partition and all data on it will be lost, click Yes.
Then formatting options appear. You can write a volume label, select a file system, cluster size, and quick or regular format. After everything has been selected, click OK.
They again warn that formatting will destroy all files on this volume, click OK to continue.
The volume formatting process starts.
Upon completion, this drive should be healthy and active.
This way you can format a portable USB device or hard drive if standard methods Formatting doesn't help.
How to format a flash drive or hard drive using Disk Management | website
Formatting using the command line
If you are not looking for easy ways, then I suggest you use the third formatting method via the command line, which is available in standard programs and Windows capabilities.
Call up the Execute window, press a combination of buttons on the keyboard
A black screen and a command line opens, in which we will carry out the formatting procedure.
Now you need to write the following command
- format - formatting
- fs:ntfs - select a file system, you can enter fat32 instead of ntfs
- j: - drive letter (flash drive)
- q - quick format
Asked to insert new disk into the drive
File system structures are then created and formatting is completed.
To exit from command line type the word
This way you can format any USB device or hard drive without resorting to standard formatting tools.
How to format a flash drive or hard drive - command line | website
Results
Today we learned how to format a flash drive or hard drive with three different ways, even if they are not formatted.
You may have questions related to formatting external and internal devices. You can ask them below in the comments to this article, and also use the form with me.
Thank you for reading me on
In some cases, you may need to format a flash drive or hard drive using the command line. For example, this can be useful when Windows cannot complete formatting, as well as in some other situations.
This instruction details several ways to format a USB flash drive or hard drive using the command line in Windows 10, 8 and Windows 7, as well as explanations about when which methods are more suitable.
The Diskpart command line tool, available in Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10, allows you not only to format individual partitions of a flash drive or disk, but also to delete them or create new ones.
First let's look at using Diskpart to simply format a partition:
This will complete the formatting. If you need to delete all partitions without exception (for example, D, E, F and others, including hidden ones) from a physical disk and format it as a single partition, you can do this in a similar way. On the command line, use the commands:
Formatting on the command line - video
In conclusion, about what to do if you need to format the C drive with the system. To do this, you will need to boot from a bootable LiveCD drive (including utilities for working with sections of hard disk), disk Windows recovery or installation flash drive with Windows. Those. It is required that the system not be started, since formatting also deletes it.
If you booted from bootable flash drive Windows 10, 8 or Windows 7, you can press Shift+f10 (or Shift+Fn+F10 on some laptops) in the installer, this will bring up the command line, where formatting the C drive will already be available. Also program Windows installations when selecting the mode " Full installation» allows you to format your hard drive in a graphical interface.
Why and most importantly how to format a flash drive via the command line in NTFS and FAT, built into Windows tools and HP program USB Disk Storage Format Tool. These simple tasks will be discussed in this article.
It’s probably not worth explaining for a long time what a flash drive is. It has long been included in the list of everyday devices as the most common storage medium.
Why format a flash drive to NTFS?
The reason for the need to format in NTFS is that it is impossible to write files larger than 4 GB to flash drives in FAT. Many users have encountered this problem while trying to burn movies or disc images. This is due to the fact that many manufacturers produce USB drives that are initially formatted in FAT32.
It is advisable to format a flash drive even when there is a suspicion that it is infected with a virus. Sometimes, antivirus programs point-blank they don't notice them.
Another reason to format a flash drive is slow work. This happens due to frequent writing and deleting of files, leaving empty clusters in their place. Formatting can speed it up.
Formatting a flash drive
You can format a flash drive using the built-in Windows solution. A program for formatting flash drives is also suitable for this purpose.
Let's look at everything in order, and we'll start with formatting in Windows. Before we talk about how to format a flash drive in NTFS in Windows, it’s worth talking about the types of formatting:
- Quick format clears only the table of contents of the file allocation table. In this case, there remains a possibility.
- Full formatting flash drives take longer, with it happens complete removal files. This formatting method is usually used to eliminate errors in reading and writing data, as well as to speed up the operation of a flash drive.
So, to format a flash drive in NTFS in Windows, connect it to your computer. Click on the “My Computer” shortcut and find among the list of devices with removable media your USB drive. Right-click on the flash drive and select format.
In the window that opens, specify the filename NTFS system and specify the formatting method: quick or full. To select full formatting of the flash drive, uncheck “Quick” and click “Start”.
Full formatting may take some time, depending on the size of the flash drive.
Don't forget to copy important files to your computer; after formatting, they will be deleted from the flash drive.
How to format a flash drive via the command line
The flash drive can be formatted via the command line. To do this, you need to know the letter of the volume (flash drive), in our case it is L. You also need to specify the file system (fs): FAT32 or NTFS, and the name of the flash drive (v) – in our case GRMCULF(X)R.
The command line (CMD) format prompt might look like this:
format L: /fs:FAT32 /v:GRMCULF(X)R
Formatting via the command line may take considerable time, longer than a full format via Windows.
When formatting is complete, you will see the following information.
This window will close a few seconds after the report is shown. Don't be surprised if you don't have time to see it, for example because you're distracted by something else.
Program for formatting a flash drive
A free program for formatting flash drives developed by Hewlett-Packard. You can download it using the link provided above or find it in the results of any search engine.
If, when starting the program, the error message “Permission denied. The administrator rights are required to run this tool” – right-click on the program shortcut and select “Run as administrator”.
In the program window that opens, to format the flash drive, select Device (USB drive), specify File system(file system) and, if necessary, formatting options.
Be careful when choosing a device so as not to accidentally format the wrong flash drive.
To format the flash drive, click “Start”. In the window that opens, confirm your intentions by clicking “OK”.
That's all, now you know how to format a flash drive to NTFS from FAT32 in Windows in various ways.
First, let's look at the question - why format flash drives?
Oddly enough, the main reason for formatting is not viruses on flash drive, and the inability to write a file to a flash drive larger than 4 gigabytes. Some users have encountered this problem, like an 8 GB flash drive write to flash drive movie, ISO image, folder and other files - it doesn’t work. Many manufacturers produce flash drives in the format FAT32, and fat32 does not support transfer large files. The maximum file size that can be written to a fat32 flash drive should not exceed 4 gigabytes (). This is why flash drives are formatted fat32 V ntfs.
Formatting allows you to get rid of viruses on a flash drive. If you checked the flash drive for viruses using and they didn’t find anything, but you have a suspicion that there is a virus on the flash drive- It's better to format it.
Another reason for formatting is the slow operation of the flash drive. After removal unnecessary files remain empty seats(clusters). As a result, the flash drive began to work slower - the flash drive format will help speed up its operation.
Also, formatting must be done before creating a bootable flash drive. If you want to install Windows OS from it yourself, burn it to a USB Live CD, or program to restore the system, then you first need to format the flash drive.
These are, in principle, all the basic answers to the question of why format a flash drive.
Formatting Types
There are two types of formatting - quick and full. What are the differences between them? With quick formatting, only the file allocation table and MFT are cleared, i.e. the data that was on the flash drive can be restored. With full formatting, the data is completely destroyed - overwritten with zeros.
Full formatting usually used in case of malfunctions - for example, errors in writing and reading a flash drive.
Formatting Methods
You can format flash drives using the operating system or using formatting programs such as or .
Formatting using OS Windows
Important: copy before formatting necessary files from a flash drive to a hard drive or other drive, so that you don’t have to restore files using !!!
The simplest and most accessible formatting method. Right-click on the flash drive icon and select Format.
Formatting this way from fat V ntfs impossible, and you also cannot change the cluster size and flash drive capacity. You can only assign a volume label (title, name) - what the flash drive will be called on your or another computer.
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If you check the Quick formatting box, the table of contents will be cleared (the difference between full and quick formatting is given above).
I don’t think it’s worth explaining about the “Start” and “Ok” buttons. After formatting you will see this picture
Second formatting method using Windows
You can format a flash drive at the command line. To do this, it is enough to know the volume letter (in this case, the flash drive). Open CMD and write the following command, for example:
format L: /fs:FAT32 /v:LamerKomp
Where format- this is formatting, L- volume letter (disk, flash drive, etc.) that will be formatted, fs- the file system in which the formatting will be performed (fat or ntfs) and v- this is the label (name) and press ENTER.
You can also write Extra options: Q is , A is the cluster size. If you want to know more about them, enter help format at the command line and press enter.
note: all letters are written in the Latin alphabet, case is not important.
The described methods are good for formatting a flash drive from Fat to Fat, from NTFS to Fat, if you need to format usb flash drive from fat to ntfs- use .
Useful information on flash drives
One way to format a flash drive is to use the command line. Usually it is resorted to in cases where it is impossible to do this using standard means, for example, due to an error occurring. We will look further at how formatting occurs via the command line.
We will consider two approaches:
- through the team "format";
- through the utility "diskpart".
Their difference is that the second option is used in more complex cases when the flash drive does not want to be formatted in any way.
Method 1: "format" command
Formally, you will do everything the same as in the case of standard formatting, but only using the command line.
The instructions in this case look like this:
If an error occurs, you can try to do the same, but in « safe mode» - so no unnecessary processes will interfere with formatting.
Method 2: "diskpart" utility
Diskpart is a special utility for managing disk space. Its wide functionality includes media formatting.
To use this utility, do the following:
This way you can set all the necessary formatting settings for the flash drive. It is important not to confuse the drive letter or number, so as not to erase data from another medium. In any case, completing the task is not difficult. The advantage of the command line is that all Windows users, without exception, have this tool. If you have the opportunity to use special programs to delete, use one of those indicated in our lesson.
