In this modern world, USB drives are used to transport data from one device to another through an offline medium. Windows offer some file system to offer flash drive by default to format the flash drive like FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT. So in this technical guide, we are going to discuss the modern ways to restore formatted USB drive using FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT.
- Format Your Usb Drive To Fat32
- What Is A Usb Drive
- Format Your Usb Drive To Fat32
- Format Your Usb Flash Drive To Fat32
Short description of Flash Drive
USB or flash drive is the small and compact device that is easy to carry and they can store lots of data that depends on your storage limit. You can use them to give data from your computer to another person's computer also you can use it to take the backup of your device. You can easily complete the cleaning pf the old data but the important thing is to the formatting file system.
How To Decide The File System To Format USB Flash Drive?
On windows, you have 4 options to format the drive i.e., FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT. They can be selected according to the target environment or you also opt for them according to the advantages. So, if you don't want to search restore formatted USB drive later, then you must have to take a backup of your drive you want to take backup.
Advantages of FAT/FAT32
These 2 operating system i.e., FAT and FAT32 is compatible with most of the OS. They require less storage space and helps the data scanned. The data is too small in size that it allows storing huge data into the drive.
Advantages of NTFS
NTFS is the better file format system used to format the external USB drive. It offers the very least amount of space for wastage and security by encrypting the data. The data present here is in the compressed form which allows you to store more data in the few spaces.
Icompta 6 6 0 10. Advantages of exFAT
exFAT is the best file system to utilize the disk management and it allows the people to write the files over 4 GB and there is also a partition of more than 32 GB in size.
In addition to this, there are several file systems in which your USB drive can be formatted and for our USB device to have maximum compatibility with other devices, FAT32 is the way to go. Therefore, in this tutorial, we will be discussing how one can format their USB drives as the FAT32 file system in Linux. Oct 19, 2015 Step 2: Right click on your USB drive and click on Format option. Step 3: From the window, select FAT32 from the drop down bar under File system. Step 4: Click on Start and OK to commence the formatting process. Plug in your USB drive into your PC. Open File Explorer using the icon in the Taskbar. Right click on your USB drive and click ‘Format'. Select ‘FAT32' and click ‘Start'. Put the memory stick into your computer(duh!) open command prompt ( start all programs accesories command promt. Or start run cmd) type: format x: /fs:FAT PLEASE NOTE X IS WHERE YOU MEMORY STICK IS LOCATED WHERE THE X IS YOU SHOULD PUT THE LETTER OF YOU MEMORY STICK IN MY CASE E; AND PLEASE DO NOT ACCIDENTLY FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE ITS NOT MY FAULT IF YOU FORMAT YOUR HARDDRIVE SO BE.
All these file systems also allow us to restore formatted USB drive. Hence you always can recover your data if you by mistake format your file.
How To Format An External USB Flash Drive?
- Insert the drive in the USB port.
- Right, Click on the drive then hit on the Format option.
- Now choose the desired file system from FAT, FAT32, NTFS or exFAT from the new dialogue box.
- Give a name to the drive. You can also opt for the format option.
How To Decide The File System To Format USB Flash Drive?
On windows, you have 4 options to format the drive i.e., FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT. They can be selected according to the target environment or you also opt for them according to the advantages. So, if you don't want to search restore formatted USB drive later, then you must have to take a backup of your drive you want to take backup.
Advantages of FAT/FAT32
These 2 operating system i.e., FAT and FAT32 is compatible with most of the OS. They require less storage space and helps the data scanned. The data is too small in size that it allows storing huge data into the drive.
Advantages of NTFS
NTFS is the better file format system used to format the external USB drive. It offers the very least amount of space for wastage and security by encrypting the data. The data present here is in the compressed form which allows you to store more data in the few spaces.
Icompta 6 6 0 10. Advantages of exFAT
exFAT is the best file system to utilize the disk management and it allows the people to write the files over 4 GB and there is also a partition of more than 32 GB in size.
In addition to this, there are several file systems in which your USB drive can be formatted and for our USB device to have maximum compatibility with other devices, FAT32 is the way to go. Therefore, in this tutorial, we will be discussing how one can format their USB drives as the FAT32 file system in Linux. Oct 19, 2015 Step 2: Right click on your USB drive and click on Format option. Step 3: From the window, select FAT32 from the drop down bar under File system. Step 4: Click on Start and OK to commence the formatting process. Plug in your USB drive into your PC. Open File Explorer using the icon in the Taskbar. Right click on your USB drive and click ‘Format'. Select ‘FAT32' and click ‘Start'. Put the memory stick into your computer(duh!) open command prompt ( start all programs accesories command promt. Or start run cmd) type: format x: /fs:FAT PLEASE NOTE X IS WHERE YOU MEMORY STICK IS LOCATED WHERE THE X IS YOU SHOULD PUT THE LETTER OF YOU MEMORY STICK IN MY CASE E; AND PLEASE DO NOT ACCIDENTLY FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE ITS NOT MY FAULT IF YOU FORMAT YOUR HARDDRIVE SO BE.
All these file systems also allow us to restore formatted USB drive. Hence you always can recover your data if you by mistake format your file.
How To Format An External USB Flash Drive?
- Insert the drive in the USB port.
- Right, Click on the drive then hit on the Format option.
- Now choose the desired file system from FAT, FAT32, NTFS or exFAT from the new dialogue box.
- Give a name to the drive. You can also opt for the format option.
Note: Before you start the process of formatting the drive for the case when it has some important data.
- In the end, click on the start button to start the process of formatting. Then, click on the Yes button and data will be erased automatically and after that, you'll get notified.
How To Format USB using CMD
- Open Command Prompt.
- Type diskpart and hit enter.
- Type list disk and hit enter.
- Now select the targeted disk and hit enter.
- Type clean and click on the enter button.
- Type create partition primary and then click on enter.
- Type format fs=ntfs and press enter. If you want another file system then you can choose accordingly.
- Now type assign.
Note: This process will format your drive and assign a drive to the removable USB drive.
It is always suggested to the user to always take the backup before you are going to format your drive to recover it for the case to recover it when you mistakenly formatted your important files/data.
How to Restore Formatted USB Drive or Flash Drive Using the Previous Version
Format Your Usb Drive To Fat32
To recover permanently deleted files using CMD you can take the help of the previous version option. This option is easily available in Microsoft Windows 10/8.1/8/7. So to do that, follow the steps: Microsoft pocket edition apk.
- Find the deleted file folder and Right-click on it.
- Select the Properties option.
- Here all previous versions of that file are available.
- So from the list of the previous versions choose the file edition you are looking for.
- Finally, hit on the Restore button.
If this method fails to recover your files from the flash drive then you have only one option i.e., Recovery with the help of the Data Recovery Tool.
Final Words
In this technical blog, you are informed about all the process to restore formatted USB drive and process of formatting using the FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT. Apart from this, we will give you a suggestion to get you out of every problem. In the last, you always recommended taking the backup of your files before formatting. If every recovery process fails then use professional tools, this will always help you.
If you need to format a USB flash drive, HDD, SDD, or some other form of storage to FAT32, you've come to the right place.
In this article we'll go over what a file system is, the FAT32 standard, and several ways to format a storage device to FAT32 on Windows 10.
What's a file system?
A file system is a standardized way of organizing data on a computer storage device like a flash drive or HDD.
A file system divides a storage device into virtual compartments, almost like a wall of post office boxes, and keeps track of all the information that gets stored in each box.
Some of the most common file system formats for portable storage devices are FAT32, NTFS, and ExFAT.
FAT32 compared to other formats
Of those three common formats, FAT32 is the oldest and most widely supported. Every major operating system will allow you to read and write from a USB flash drive that's formatted to FAT32.
Meanwhile, macOS can only read NTFS drives, and you would need to install third-party software to write back to the drive.
However, though FAT32 is well supported, its maximum drive and file size is severely limited when compared to newer formats like NTFS and ExFAT:
Max drive size | Max file size | Windows | macOS | Linux | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
FAT32 | 32 GB (Windows), up to 16TB (Other OSs) | 4 GB | Read/Write | Read/Write | Read/Write |
NTFS | 8 PB* | 16 EB** | Read/Write | Read | Read/Write |
ExFAT | 128 PB* | 16 EB** | Read/Write | Read/Write | Read/Write |
* 1 petabyte is about 1 thousand terabytes
** 1 exabyte is about 1 million terabytes
Note that the maximum drive and file size of NTFS and ExFAT is so large that there's basically no limit. (But it would be nice to have a 128 PB USB drive, wouldn't it?)
On the other hand, FAT32's max file size of 4 GB is almost nothing now that phones can record 4K videos. Also, it's a little more difficult to format a drive larger than 32 GB to FAT32 on Windows 10.
These days, the only reason why you'd choose to format a drive to FAT32 is for compatibility. For example, if you need to boot up an old computer, maybe with a different operating system, and backup some of its files. But you'd need to be sure that none of those files are greater than 4 GB.
If you're sure you want to go with FAT32, here's how to format a storage drive on Windows 10.
Important note: https://placekindl691.weebly.com/anytoiso-3-9-for-mac-free-download.html. Before you format a drive, make sure that you backup all of your important files. In fact, make two backups, and keep one on a remote service like Google Drive or Dropbox.
Formatting a drive will delete all of the data that's currently on it.
How to use Windows File Explorer to format a USB drive to FAT32
A quick note about this method: it only works on USB flash drives that are less that 32 GB. If your USB drive is larger than 32 GB, check out one of the later methods.
With that out of the way, plug your USB drive into your computer and open Windows File Explorer.
Next, right-click on the drive on the left hand side of the File Explorer window and click 'Format':
In the window that pops up, ensure that 'FAT32' is selected. Also, feel free to rename the USB drive whatever you'd like:
You can leave the rest of the options alone. Just click start to format your drive.
Once it's done, your USB drive should be formatted to use the FAT32 file system.
To double check this, open File Explorer, right click on your USB drive, and click 'Properties'.
A window will pop up and you should see that the file system is now FAT32:
How to use Rufus to format a USB drive to FAT32
If your USB drive is larger than 32 GB, you'll need to use a third-party program like Rufus to format it.
There are lots of other programs that can format USB drives, but Rufus is really small and portable. This means you can stick Rufus right on a USB drive, plug it into any Windows computer, and format other drives on the go.
What Is A Usb Drive
After you download Rufus, double click on the .exe
file to start the application.
Make sure your USB drive is selected. Then, click the 'Boot selection' dropdown and select 'Non bootable':
Next, click the 'File system' dropdown and select 'FAT32'.
Format Your Usb Drive To Fat32
Also, feel free to change the name of your USB drive under 'Volume label':
Then, click the 'Start' button to format your drive. After a few seconds it'll be formatted to FAT32.
Format Your Usb Flash Drive To Fat32
How to use PowerShell to format a USB drive to FAT32
While this method works with drives larger than 32 GB, it's really slow – even formatting a 32 GB drive can take up to an hour depending on your computer.
But, if you aren't able to use the previous two methods for some reason, this will work in a pinch.
First, click on the Windows Search Bar and type in 'powershell'. Then, click 'Run as administrator' to launch PowerShell with elevated privileges:
In the PowerShell terminal, enter the following command:
format /FS:FAT32 DRIVE_LETTER:
Use the File Explorer to double check your drive letter. My drive letter was D, so I entered format /FS:FAT32 D:
.
Press Enter, make sure your USB drive is plugged in, and press the Enter key again to start the process:
Then go run some errands or something – it will take awhile.
Once the format
command is finished, your drive should be formatted to FAT32.
In closing
Now you should be able to format a USB drive of any size to FAT32 on Windows 10. And with just a little modification, any of these methods can be used to format your drive to another file system like NTFS or ExFAT.
Now get out there and format all your USB drives. (But only after you backup everything important!)
Was this helpful? Is there a better method that you know of? Tweet at me and let me know how you format things on Windows 10.