5 Quick and Simple Ways to Format a USB with Errors

Are you experiencing a problem with a USB that is damaged and cannot be accessed or used? This can happen in various cases and can be inconvenient for users. However, don’t worry too much! In this article, FPT Shop will share with you 5 detailed ways to format a corrupted USB.

Causes of USB corruption

USB is a small and convenient data storage device widely used in life and work. However, USB corruption is a “stubborn” condition that can occur when you want to format a USB for storage, copying, or transferring data.

When you encounter this error, you will often receive error messages such as:

• “The disk is write protected” or “You need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it”.
• “The disk in drive X: is not formatted” or “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.”

Some possible causes of USB corruption include:

• USB damage during use: Infected with viruses when plugging the USB into an unsafe desktop computer, or accidentally subjected to impacts or left in high-temperature, humid, dusty conditions.
• USB file system corruption: Caused by using the USB with multiple different operating systems, such as Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.
• USB partition corruption: Caused by using partitioning tools incorrectly, such as Disk Management, Diskpart, etc.
• USB logical corruption: Due to frequent plugging and unplugging of the USB while transferring data, and sudden shutdown of the computer while using the USB.

5 simplest ways to format a corrupted USB

Before attempting to format a corrupted USB using any of these methods, you should back up important data from the USB to another device to avoid data loss in the event of a failure.

After backing up your data, you can try the following methods to format the corrupted USB:

Method 1: Format USB to a different file system

First, find and open the file manager on your laptop. Locate the corrupted USB in the displayed drive list. Right-click on the USB and select “Format” from the context menu. In the Format window, find the “File System” option and select the “FAT32” or “NTFS” format from the list.

Make sure you select the “Quick Format” option to optimize the formatting process. Click the “Format” button to start formatting the corrupted USB.

Method 2: Use Disk Management to format the USB

In some cases, if you encounter difficulties formatting the USB using conventional methods, you can try using the Disk Management tool integrated into the Windows operating system. This is a management and customization tool for disk drives connected to your computer, providing flexibility and safety for the formatting process.

Here’s how to use the Disk Management tool:

Step 1. Right-click on the “My Computer” or “This PC” icon on your screen and select “Manage” from the context menu.

Step 2. In the “Computer Management” window, locate and click on “Disk Management” in the list of tools.

Step 3. When the Disk Management window appears, find the corrupted USB that you want to format. Right-click on the USB and select “Format” from the context menu.

Step 4. In the Format window, you can choose the format depending on your usage needs, such as NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT, by selecting from the list in the “File System” field.

Step 5. Uncheck the “Perform a quick format” option and then click “Format” to proceed with the formatting process.

Method 3: Use Command Prompt (CMD) to format the USB

If the previous methods are not successful, you can use the Command Prompt (CMD) to format the USB. Here are the detailed instructions:

Step 1: First, check the drive letter of the USB that is plugged into your computer (for example: G:, I:, H:, etc.).

Step 2: Press the “Windows + R” key combination to open the “Run” dialog box, then type “cmd” and press “Enter”.

Step 3: The Command Prompt window will appear. Here, type the command “format /q /x drive letter” and press “Enter”. For example, if the drive letter of the USB is F:, then type “format /q /x F:”.

Step 4: A command line will appear “…and press ENTER when ready…”. Press “Enter” to start formatting the USB.

Step 5. Another command line will appear “Volume label (32 characters, ENTER for none)?”. Here, you can enter a name for your USB drive (if desired) and press “Enter”.

Step 6. After the formatting process is complete, a command line “Format Complete“ and the capacity of the storage device will appear. And you can check the successful format of the USB by checking the capacity in the My Computer folder.

Method 4: Remove the Write Protection feature on the drive

To remove the Write Protection feature on the USB drive, you can follow these steps:

Step 1. Press the “Win + R” key combination to open the “Run” dialog box and enter “diskpart”. Then, confirm if it opens the Command Prompt interface.

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, enter “list disk” and press “Enter”. You will see a list of drives and can identify the USB drive based on the capacity. Enter “select disk X” (replace X with the corresponding drive number) to select the drive to change.

Step 3. To remove the Write Protection feature, enter “attributes disk clear readonly”. The operating system will display a confirmation message that the attributes have been successfully cleared. Finally, enter the “exit” command to exit the Command Prompt window.

Note: If you see “Yes” next to the “Current Read-only State” line, it means that the Write Protection feature is enabled on the drive.

Method 5: Perform error checking on the drive

When encountering formatting errors due to bad sectors or similar issues on the drive, you can follow these steps:

Step 1: Open “This PC” (or “My Computer” on older versions).

Step 2: Right-click on the drive to be checked and select “Properties“.

Step 3: In the resulting menu, switch to the “Tools” tab and click on the “Check” button in the “Error checking” section.

Step 4: Select “Repair drive” to start the checking process on the drive.

Step 5: Wait for the process to complete, and then try formatting again.

Note: If you still encounter problems after using the above methods, check the USB connection and retry the methods several times before taking it to a repair shop. Your USB may have hardware-related issues or heavy file system errors on the USB.

Conclusion

Through this article, you have learned about 5 ways to format a corrupted USB with FPT Shop. We hope this article has provided you with useful information about how to format a corrupted USB. If you have any questions or comments, you can leave them below. Good luck!