8/22/10
How to Force Format a USB Flash Drive in Windows XP/Vista/7
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If you cannot format successfully your USB flash drive using Windows format feature, you can try the tip given below.
Get Started
1. Open the Start menu, type cmd in search box, right click on cmd.exe and select Run as adminstrator.
2. Run now this command:
format H: /FS:FAT32 /x
Replace H: with your own USB flash drive letter (E:, F:, G:, etc.). You can also replace FAT32 with another file system such as NTFS, FAT, etc.
That's it!
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20 Responses to “How to Force Format a USB Flash Drive in Windows XP/Vista/7”
June 9, 2011 at 6:20 PM
THIS IS VERY SIMPLE AND GOOD SOLUTION.
June 21, 2011 at 2:18 AM
stuck at "0 percent completed" within the cmd window
June 21, 2011 at 5:33 AM
@Branigan Sabado
Maybe your flash drive is write-protected.
July 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM
I'm having the same problem with a thumb drive. It's not write-protected and is FAT32, 4G.
July 13, 2011 at 10:34 AM
If you can't force format it, then it is damaged.
September 19, 2011 at 5:58 PM
I got to 50% and then it said "The media being formatted has been removed or has become invalid. Format aborted"
September 20, 2011 at 2:42 AM
@PieEatingZombie
I think your USB media needs to be replaced!
October 5, 2011 at 5:25 AM
and what does a person do if the comand prompt is not ready to wait for me type more than a alphabet
and then it vanishes poof!!!
October 6, 2011 at 4:37 PM
yogini, it sounds like you are typing the info in the run command - that's why it opens then closes instantly - you need to click start then click run then type cmd and hit ok - this will open a black, dos box - THEN you can continue with "format H: /FS:FAT32 /x"
October 12, 2011 at 10:15 AM
I can't get this to work. I type the command, using the correct drive letter, and then hit enter, and it just brings up another c: line prompt. I also typed :f to go to an f: line prompt, and can't get it to work. Gah. What am I doing wrong? The flash drive is one that I picked up at a trade show with preinstalled software and PDFS. Is a cool flash drive so I want to reformat so I can reuse. Thanks for your help!
November 18, 2011 at 5:37 PM
i tried to type your command and it said that "Access Denied as you do not have sufficient priveleges. You have to invoke this utility running in elevated mode"
November 19, 2011 at 2:40 AM
you have to start the command line as administrator.
December 19, 2011 at 10:41 PM
what will i do if it is write-protected?
March 29, 2012 at 3:03 AM
i got this message (Cannot open volume for direct access, now what i do
June 25, 2012 at 7:11 PM
Thanks a lot man, it worked. thumbs uP!
September 14, 2012 at 11:48 AM
how do you format a write protected usb 4gb flash disk. or even better, how do you remove the write protection????Heeeelllllllllllp>!
October 5, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Cannot format , volume is write protected , and i tried dam everything to get permissions for it , and when i scanned it there is no bad sectors
November 23, 2012 at 11:13 AM
It says
Insert new disk for drive H
and press ENTER when ready
when I press enter it says
Error in IOCTL call.
December 27, 2012 at 10:48 AM
MINES FORMATTED WITH THE WRITE PROTECTION ON DOES THIS MEAN WRITE PROTECTION WILL GO
January 8, 2013 at 7:40 PM
Is there another way? :/ Same response, im stuck at 0 percent completed. and when i try to access it, it says "F:/ is not accessible. Access is denied."
What do i do?
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