How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 how to#
How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 install#
How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 portable#
How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 download#
How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 free#

My drive letter was D, so I entered format /FS:FAT32 D. Use the File Explorer to double check your drive letter. In the PowerShell terminal, enter the following command: Then, click 'Run as administrator' to launch PowerShell with elevated privileges: While this method works with drives larger than 32 GB, it's really slow – even formatting a 32 GB drive can take up to an hour depending on your computer.īut, if you aren't able to use the previous two methods for some reason, this will work in a pinch.įirst, click on the Windows Search Bar and type in 'powershell'.

How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 how to#

How to use PowerShell to format a USB drive to FAT32 After a few seconds it'll be formatted to FAT32. Then, click the 'Start' button to format your drive.

How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 free#

Next, click the 'File system' dropdown and select 'FAT32'.Īlso, feel free to change the name of your USB drive under 'Volume label': Then, click the 'Boot selection' dropdown and select 'Non bootable':

How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 download#

This means you can stick Rufus right on a USB drive, plug it into any Windows computer, and format other drives on the go.Īfter you download Rufus, double click on the. There are lots of other programs that can format USB drives, but Rufus is really small and portable. If your USB drive is larger than 32 GB, you'll need to use a third-party program like Rufus to format it. To double check this, open File Explorer, right click on your USB drive, and click 'Properties'.Ī window will pop up and you should see that the file system is now FAT32: How to use Rufus to format a USB drive to FAT32 Once it's done, your USB drive should be formatted to use the FAT32 file system. You can leave the rest of the options alone. Also, feel free to rename the USB drive whatever you'd like: In the window that pops up, ensure that 'FAT32' is selected. Next, right-click on the drive on the left hand side of the File Explorer window and click 'Format': With that out of the way, plug your USB drive into your computer and open Windows File Explorer. If your USB drive is larger than 32 GB, check out one of the later methods. How to use Windows File Explorer to format a USB drive to FAT32Ī quick note about this method: it only works on USB flash drives that are less that 32 GB. In fact, make two backups, and keep one on a remote service like Google Drive or Dropbox.įormatting a drive will delete all of the data that's currently on it. Important note: Before you format a drive, make sure that you backup all of your important files. If you're sure you want to go with FAT32, here's how to format a storage drive on Windows 10. But you'd need to be sure that none of those files are greater than 4 GB. For example, if you need to boot up an old computer, maybe with a different operating system, and backup some of its files. These days, the only reason why you'd choose to format a drive to FAT32 is for compatibility. Also, it's a little more difficult to format a drive larger than 32 GB to FAT32 on Windows 10. On the other hand, FAT32's max file size of 4 GB is almost nothing now that phones can record 4K videos. (But it would be nice to have a 128 PB USB drive, wouldn't it?) Note that the maximum drive and file size of NTFS and ExFAT is so large that there's basically no limit.

** 1 exabyte is about 1 million terabytes * 1 petabyte is about 1 thousand terabytes However, though FAT32 is well supported, its maximum drive and file size is severely limited when compared to newer formats like NTFS and ExFAT:

How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 install#

Meanwhile, macOS can only read NTFS drives, and you would need to install third-party software to write back to the drive. Every major operating system will allow you to read and write from a USB flash drive that's formatted to FAT32. Of those three common formats, FAT32 is the oldest and most widely supported.

How to reformat a usb drive windows 10 portable#

Some of the most common file system formats for portable storage devices are FAT32, NTFS, and ExFAT. What's a file system?Ī file system is a standardized way of organizing data on a computer storage device like a flash drive or HDD.Ī file system divides a storage device into virtual compartments, almost like a wall of post office boxes, and keeps track of all the information that gets stored in each box. In this article we'll go over what a file system is, the FAT32 standard, and several ways to format a storage device to FAT32 on Windows 10. If you need to format a USB flash drive, HDD, SDD, or some other form of storage to FAT32, you've come to the right place.