Click the Next button again to use all the available space.Right-click the "Unallocated" space and choose the New Simple Volume option. Right-click the removable storage and select the Delete volume option. To clean and format a USB flash drive, use these steps: If you are dealing with errors or other problems, you can clean the USB drive and start again from scratch with a new partition and file system with Disk Management. (Optional) Check the Enable file and folder compression option.Īfter you complete the steps, the drive will be erased and reformatted to store data again.In the "Allocation unit size" drop-down menu, use the Default option.(You can also select the "FAT32" or "exFAT" option.)
How to format USB flash drive with Disk Management Once you complete the steps, the flash drive will be ready to store documents, pictures, videos, and other files on the removable drive. As a result, this process can take a long time, depending on the size of the drive.
If you do not check the option, a full format operation will be performed, and it will do a scan for bad sectors and writes zeros in all sectors deleting the data. Quick note: The "Quick format" option only deletes the file system table and the root folder, but the data may still be recoverable. Under the "Format options" section, select the Quick format option.
How to format USB flash drive with File Explorer