Reformatting a USB Drive

By Matthew EltonCopyright 2007 Matthew EltonIf you want to remove all the data from a USB drive (also known as a “Pen Drive” or “Flash Drive”) in one click, or if your USB drive has disk errors that need correcting, it’stime to reformat.

WARNING:

Reformatting will remove ALL data from the drive. If there is any data onthe drive that you want to keep, back it up on another drive.1. Double click on the My Computer icon on your desktop (or go to “My Computer”from the Start Menu”)2. Plug in the USB drive you want to format. The icon for the USB drive will appear.Right click on it. (If an Autoplay window appears, close it out by clicking on the “X” inthe top left corner)3. Left click on Format.

4. The format window will appear:

5. Click on the white box underneath “Capacity” to adjust how much space the drive canhold. There is usually only one option available, but if there is more than one optionavailable, I recommend selecting the largest possible capacity.6. Click on the white box under “File system” to select the file system of the drive. If the NTFS file system is available, select it. Otherwise, select FAT32. If FAT32 is notavailable, select whatever is available.7. Click on the box under “Volume Label” to type in a name for the drive.8. If possible, click on “Enable Compression” so there is a checkmark in the box next to“Enable Compression.”9. Make sure there is no checkmark in the box next to “Create an MS-DOS startup disk.”If there is, click on the box and the checkmark will disappear 10. Click on “Quick Format” to change whether or not there is a checkmark in the boxnext to “Quick Format.” If there is a checkmark in the box next to “Quick Format,” allthe data will be removed from the drive in a short period of time (probably severalseconds, but exactly how long it takes will depend on the size of the drive and the speedof your computer). If there is not a checkmark in the box next to “Quick Format,” thenthe data will be removed from the drive and the entire file system of the drive will beremoved and re-written (this will clear disk errors from the drive) in a longer period of time (probably several minutes, but exactly how long it takes will depend on the size of the drive and the speed of your computer).