Similar to USB, you can format any of the individual partition on the hard drive like C:, D:, etc. Formatting USB Drive on Mac. Insert the USB drive on your Mac and follow the below instructions to format. Press “Command + Spacebar” to open Spotlight Search box and type “disk utility”. The instructions below are for Windows 10, but other versions of Windows from Windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exFAT for use with Mac as well. Connect the drive to your. Part 2: Formatting USB on a Windows PC. Please note: I’m here to use a Windows 10 based HP laptop to format my Lexar drive. If you are on an earlier operating system like Windows 7, XP, etc. The screenshots may look slightly different. For example, in Windows XP “My Computer” is equivalent to “This PC’ on Windows 10.

What Can You Do with Bootable USB Hard Drive Format Utility?

Almost everyone knows that formatting hard drives is not a difficult job and can be easily done with the built-in Disk Management tool in Windows. However, formatting a hard disk could be complex when your operating system cannot boot properly or your disk fails to work normally. That's when you need to create a bootable USB to format your hard drive. You can format hard drive from USB by using a bootable USB drive created by a third-party HDD format tool or a Windows installation disk. Both are effective bootable USB hard drive format utilities. Read on and carry out the method best suited to your needs.

Drives format very quickly, though the total time taken will depend on the size of the drive. Using FAT File System Format for Mac & Windows Compatibility. Once the drive is formatted it will be compatible to be read and written to on both a Mac and PC.

Method 1: Format Hard Drive from USB with Bootable format Tool

The simplest way to format your HDD from USB is to use the professional partition management software - EaseUS Partition Master. With the assistance of this tool, you can create a bootable format tool that enables you to run the software on the problematic computer and then format the hard drive from USB without the operating system. To get things done, you need to create a bootable USB drive with a computer that is fully functional (Part 1), then apply it to format hard drive on the computer without OS (Part 2).

Part 1: Create a Bootable USB Drive

Please refer to this page: create a bootable drive with EaseUS Partition Master.

After creating a bootable USB drive with the format tool, you can format your hard drive on the problematic computer from USB. Connect the USB to your computer and then open EaseUS Partition Master from the USB. Then follow the steps below.

Part 2: Format Hard Drive from USB

Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the hard drive partition you intend to format and choose 'Format'.

Step 2: In the new window, set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and Cluster size for the partition to be formatted, then click 'OK'.

Format Usb Drive For Mac And Windows 10

Step 3: Then you will see a warning window, click 'OK' in it to continue.

Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting the partition on your hard drive.

If you follow the guide above, you will use the bootable USB to format your hard drive successfully. Don't miss this partition tool that can perfectly fulfill your needs.

Method 2: Format HDD from USB using Command Prompt

Other than using the third-party tool, you can also format your hard drive from USB with the help of Windows Installation disk, which, as you will know, is relatively more complicated than using a bootable format tool as shown in Method 1.

Step 1: Create a Windows installation disk and boot your PC from it.

Step 2: Navigate Repair Your Computer --> Command Prompt.

Step 3: In the Command Prompt window, type diskpart and press 'enter'.

Step 4: Type list disk and press 'Enter' to list all the disk drives.

Step 5: Type select disk + disk number, here you can find the number of the target disk by referring to the listed disk information.

Step 6: Type clean to wipe all files and folders on the selected disk.

Step 7: Type create partition primary and press 'Enter'.

Step 8: After diskpart successfully created the specified partition, type format fs=ntfs (or format fs=exfat) and press Enter. You're telling diskpart to format the drive with a file system, let it be NTFS, exFAT, etc.

Step 9: At last, assign a drive letter to the newly created partition by typing assign.

The above guide shows you all the steps to partition and format a hard drive from USB using the diskpart command prompt. As you can see, It is a little bit tedious and time-consuming. If you want an easier way, a third-party bootable USB format tool will help.

Can You Format Hard Drive from BIOS?

Other than following the bootable USB methods to format a hard drive, you can also try to format a hard drive from BIOS. It works in the same scenarios when something went wrong with the bootable partition or when you want to format C drive in Windows.

To format hard drive from BIOS settings, you got two options.

Option 1. Boot into BIOS and Format in Windows

Step1: While booting up your computer, consecutively press F1, F2, F8 or Del key to enter BIOS settings.

Step2: Select the 'Advanced BIOS Features' by pressing the arrow keys on the keyboard of your computer and then set the first boot device as the USB drive or CD, DVD.

Step3: After changing the BIOS settings, you can exit the screen and reboot your computer. Insert the bootable USB or CD/DVD, and your computer will boot from USB or CD, DVD.

Step4: After booting the computer, you can go ahead to format the hard drive in Windows Explorer or Windows Disk Management.

Option 2. Boot into BIOS and Format Using CMD

Step 1: While booting up your computer, consecutively press F1, F2, F8 or Del key to enter BIOS settings.

Step 2: Change the boot order to boot from USB/CD/DVD.

Step 3: Reboot your computer from the bootable disk. When your disk loaded, click 'Use this recovery tools that can help fix problems starting Windows' and navigate to Windows installation > Command Prompt.

Step 4: In the Command Prompt window, type format c: /fs: ntfs and hit Enter.

Which Way Do You Prefer Formatting A Hard Drive?

Based on the situations when you cannot normally start a computer, the boot partition fails to boot, or try to reinstall an operating system, it's necessary to format a hard drive in a bootable environment. Concluding from what we presented in the article, you can start freely to format HDD from USB and format HDD from BIOS settings.

No matter you choose to format hard drive from USB or BIOS settings, you must create a bootable USB or disc to boot into Windows. In comparison, EaseUS USB bootable format software is the easiest to create, and disk formatting is usually done in a few simple clicks. Whereas the Windows recovery disk is rather difficult to get, and format hard drive using CMD is higher-leveled. We don't recommend average computer users to attempt for the first time.

Summary: This article tells how to format a USB flash drive on Windows 10/8/7 and Mac when you want to reformat a new or second-hand removable storage device to make sure it doesn’t contain any malicious files or fix the logical errors.

What is Formatting？

Formatting is the fastest way to prepare the USB flash drive for the initial use. It wipes all the data stored on your flash drive and allows full use of the storage capacity. Meanwhile, it also creates a filing system that can help organizes your data on Windows or Mac.

Which File System Should I Choose for a USB Flash Drive?

We can’t talk about formatting without talking about file system as it differs when we are using the different computers; the common file systems are FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS for Windows, APFS, HFS+, and exFAT for macOS, here we will only talk about the most common file systems when formatting a USB flash drive:

• FAT32: It’s compatible with all major operating systems and uses less memory usage. But it cannot handle single files larger than 4GB and has a limited partition size (up to 32GB).
• NTFS: It can create partitions larger than 32GB and read/write files larger than 4GB. Besides, it supports on-the-fly file encryption. The disadvantage is that the Mac computer can only read the data from the NTFS drive.
• exFAT: It provides an unlimited file and partition size. It serves no matter the Windows or Mac users who want to work with files larger than 4GB.

We strongly recommend that you use exFAT, which is considered the best choice for both Windows and Mac computers, whereas the exFAT file system works better than FAT32 and can handle the file size up to 16GB.

How to Format a USB Drive on Windows 7/8/10?

After deciding which file system you are going to apply, let’s explore the formatting methods. Generally, On Windows 10, 8, 7, there are some common ways you can format a USB flash drive.

Method 1: Format a USB Flash Drive Using File Explorer

This is the easiest way with which many users are familiar. Refer to the following steps to learn how.

Step 1: Connect your USB flash drive and open press Win key + E to open File Explorer.

Step 2: Right-click on the drive and choose the Format option.

Step 3: Expand the File system drop-down menu and select the exFAToption.

Step 4: Click on the Start button.

Note: Uncheck the Quick Format means full format; it goes with a thorough scanning and wiping your data on the USB flash drive, you will have no chance to get back your data after using this option.

Method 2: Format a USB Flash Drive Using Diskpart

Using diskpart to format a USB flash drive is another useful method, and even it works for the computer user who has no exFAT options in File Explorer or Disk Management. However, the user should select the correct volume before carrying out a quick or full format on your USB flash drive:

Step 1: Enter Command Prompt in the search bar and then right-click it, choose Run as administrator.

Step 2: Enter below-written commands in the same order and same diskpart window:

• diskpart
• list volume
• select volume NUMBER (Replace NUMBER to the exact number of your USB flash drive)
• format fs=exFAT quick (Don’t enter quick if you want a full format)

Note: Replace exFAT if you choose another file system, for example, enter the command format fs=fat32 to format the USB flash drive into FAT32 format.

Method 3: Format a USB Drive Using Disk Management

This is a method similar to the one performed by using File Explorer, and here are the steps you can follow:

Step 1: Press Win + Q, type in Disk Management and open it.

Step 2: Right-click on the desired USB flash drive and select Format.

Step 3: Select exFAT from the File System drop-down menu.

Step 4: Click on the OK button.

Method 4: Format a USB Flash Drive Using PowerShell (Windows 10 Only)

PowerShell is a task and configuration management platform which was first appeared in 2006; it’s powerful than Command Prompt that can be used to automate many different system administration tasks, and of course, for formatting a USB flash drive:

Step 1: Right-click on the Start menu at the lower-left corner and choose Windows PowerShell(Admin).

Step 2: Enter the following command to view the USB flash drive you want to format:

• Get-Volume
• Format-Volume -DriveLetter F -FileSystem exFAT (Replace F to the exact drive letter of your USB flash drive)

Note: In this method, you should note that after entering the format command, it goes to format the USB flash drive to exFAT directly, and if you want a FAT32 drive, just replace exFAT to FAT32, that’s all.

How to Perform a USB Drive Format on Mac?

Reformatting a USB flash drive in exFAT on Mac is easy than you imagine; we should thank the Disk Utility that can make the reformatting easy to complete; Likewise, follow with the same steps if you would like to reformat an SD card, internal or external hard drive:

Format Usb Drive For Mac And Windows

Step 1: Connect the USB stick to the PC with one of the USB ports and then press Command + Space to search Disk Utility.

Step 2: After selecting the drive on the left part of the Disk Utility window, click on the Erase button lying at the top of the window.

Step 3: Now, select exFAT from the drop-down menu of the Format.

Step 4: Click the Erase and wait for the reformatting process to complete.

Note: Please back up your data before the formatting of your USB flash drive as Erase will wipe all of the stored data!

What if you were not intended to format the USB flash drive, and there are lots of the vital photos, videos, documents, or any other files stored on the drive that have been lost due to the reformatting. What should we do to retrieve lost data? Don’t worry, a quick format won’t cause all of the data to lose, the file contents still exist on the USB flash drive, and you will have a big chance to get back your data as soon as you launch the third-party data recovery program – Bitwar Data Recovery to perform a full scan.

Recover Files From a Formatted Drive Using Bitwar Data Recovery

No matter how carefully or gradually backing up the USB flash drive, the data loss is still inevitable, such as the USB flash drive turns to a RAW drive suddenly, or you might unplug the drive without safely removing from the computer; moreover, the backup files are out-to-dated when the accident happens.

We have experienced many of the users encountered the same frustrating issue that causes the works to stop, and most of them finally chose to start the work again as they didn’t know how to restore the data. Right now, you’ll be all set if using Bitwar Data Recovery with the steps below:

Step 1: Go toBitwarsoft Download Center to download and install Bitwar Data Recovery.

Step 2: After completing the installation, open the Bitwar data recovery software and then select the formatted USB flash drive.

Step 3: Choose a recovery mode. We strongly recommend you choose the Quick Scan for the first time since this mode scans the whole drive in just a few minutes. However, if this mode can’t work to find your data, try with the Deep Scan mode next time.

Step 4: Choose the File types and then press the Scan button.

Step 5: Double-click on wanted files to preview them. After that, click on Recover to save the files to a safe place.

Note: Please be careful not to save the recovered files to the formatted USB flash drive. The reason is to prevent the data from being overwritten again.

Conclusion

Like many other storage devices, The USB flash drive can be easily failed without any concerns. There are many possible causes behind the happening of this accident, such as the unstable flash chip, disconnect the USB flash drive before safely removing from the computer, virus attack, or Trojan infection. Some of the failures are just logic errors that can be fixed easily by reformatting the drive. Some failures prove that your USB flash drive was physically damaged, and that means you may have to consider buying a new one.

If you purchase a brand-new USB flash drive and want an initial usage or the USB flash drive has encountered any logic errors as told, this article serves you very well, as it tells how to format a USB flash drive with different methods on Windows or Mac. What if there were vital data stored on the USB flash drive, it is suggested to retrieve the data using Bitwar Data Recovery before starting the formatting.

Follow with the steps mentioned above and hope that you can finally reformat the USB flash drive or get back the wanted data.

Format Usb Flash For Mac And Windows

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How To Format Usb Drive For Mac And Windows

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