In the process of formatting the U disk through the Windows file explorer, disk management or Diskpart command, we will encounter that Windows cannot format the U disk. There may be several reasons for this problem:
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The USB drive is infected with viruses and malware;
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U disk has bad sectors;
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The U disk has been physically damaged;
1. Eliminate possible viruses
U disk is a very portable device, through which computer users can easily connect to the computer for data backup or transmission, so many users often carry it with them and use it on various computers. So it is easy to get a virus. You can use an antivirus tool to remove malicious or viral programs.
After that, try formatting the USB drive again.
2. Check and repair bad sectors on the USB flash drive
As we all know, U disks and other storage devices are composed of many sectors, and a sector is a unit of data storage. Files stored on them usually occupy non-contiguous sectors. A bad sector is a sector that is corrupted and cannot be read or written, thus potentially interrupting the formatting process. To check and repair bad sectors, you can use the "CHKDSK.exe" tool.
> Press the "Win+R" keys on the keyboard to open the "Run" dialog box, enter "cmd" and press the "Enter" key to open the command prompt window.
> Type "chkdsk g: /f /r /x" in the window and press "Enter" key to execute this command.
✍ NOTE: Replace E with the drive letter of your USB drive.
3. Disable the write-protect attribute before formatting
Also, Windows will not be able to format a write-protected USB drive. However, the USB flash drive may be write-protected and cannot be formatted due to different reasons, such as physically locked, set to read-only mode, wrong registry settings or corrupted file system. Different causes require different solutions.
> Check equipment
Check your USB drive first, if there is a physical lock switch on the side, you can slide the switch to the unlock area. Then, connect it to your computer and you can format it if you want.
> Use the Diskpart utility to remove the read-only attribute
First connect the USB flash drive to the computer and make sure it can be detected.
Step 1. Press the "Windows+R" combination on the keyboard to open the Run dialog box.
Step 2. Then enter "diskpart" in the run dialog box, and click "OK" to open the Diskpart command prompt.
Step 3. Type "list disk" and press "Enter", every disk connected to the computer will be displayed.
Step 4. Enter "select disk n", where n refers to the drive letter of your U disk. Then, press "Enter" to continue.
Step 5. Type "attributes disk clear readonly", diskpart will change the attributes of your USB drive so that it is not read-only. After that, you can format the USB drive if you want.
> Remove write protection by editing the registry
First connect your USB flash drive to the computer and make sure it can be detected.
Step 1. Open the Run dialog box, enter "regedit" and press Enter or click "OK" to open the Registry Editor.
Step 2. Visit the following path:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies
Step 3. Double-click "WriteProtect" and change the value from 1 to 0.
Step 4. Close Regedit and restart the computer. Connect your USB drive again and you should be able to successfully format it.
Use CMD to fix "Windows cannot format the USB drive" error
First connect your USB flash drive to the computer and make sure it can be detected.
Step 1. Click "Start" and type "Command Prompt".
Step 2. Then, right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.
Step 3. After that, type "diskpart" and press "Enter". Then execute the following commands in sequence:
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list disk
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select disk n
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clean
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create partition primary
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format fs=fat32 quick (if you want to format as NTFS, please replace fat32 with ntfs).
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