How to format a USB thumb drive in Windows

by Ross McKillop on July 27, 2008

Windows

This brief tutorial will guide you through formatting a USB thumb drive (also called USB flash drives). The exact same steps apply for formatting any removable drives/memory cards/non-primary hard drive partitions.

  1. Formatting a drive, of any kind, will wipe out all of the data on that drive. Make sure you’ve copied any files from your USB thumb drive to a different location before formatting.
  2. Plug in the device and open My Computer. Right-click the USB drive and select Format….
  3. Select the File System that best suits your needs, and give the drive a name in the Volume label field. Click Start to format the drive.
  4. Click OK on the warning window.
  5. Once the format has completed, click OK.
  6. And now your USB thumb drive will be wiped clean, with the new volume label (name) applied.
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    { 1 trackback }

    A step by step guide to installing Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on your Eee PC - Simple Help
    07.28.08 at 9:39 am

    { 4 comments… read them below or add one }

    1 Gravity 07.28.08 at 9:27 am

    hey… i never thought of this place to get my flash drive formated. used some application to do this simple job. thnx alot!

    2 roro 09.27.08 at 4:10 am

    Useful information but when I go to My Computer I can only see the camera icon and the format option is not available. Do I need a card reader or is there another way?
    many thanks

    3 xinyi 02.06.09 at 3:06 am

    i tried that, but the screen hangs upon right clicking on the drive… what should i do???

    4 bachr 04.22.09 at 12:15 am

    لم يهيا الفلاش بهذه الطريقة فما العمل شككككككرررررررااااا

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