Can't Format USB Drive in Windows 10

[@Britec09]

common USB drive problem solved. Drop us a LIKE 👍

[@markanderson2155]

One question does this same method work with a HDD or just thumb drive?

[@evanray8413]

@@markanderson2155 Both.

[@markanderson2155]

@@evanray8413 thank you! I figured but I was just double checking. The title threw me for a loop, but then I thought well HDD can be used as external USB drive. Duh, lol.

[@Hellfield]

Hey, Hi there. When I tried to create the partition, the ststem told me there's no space for the operation

[@leupt3283]

Hi, in my case, it says 0 percent completed when I hit enter after format fs+ntfs quick. Why is this so? is there a solution for this?

[@jeliaroischers8983]

Still saving lives 2 years after the original upload, thanks man

[@bobpage6597]

This has solved a real headache of a problem I was having with a USB stick. Lesson learned that you can't always easily swap a USB stick between Windows NTFS & Linux EXT4 filing systems. The memory stick worked perfectly fine in Linux even with NTFS, but Windows just wouldn't mount it or even format it when I tried. Third party software seemed to be able to format it, but the problem appeared to be I couldn't get the USB to take a letter - hence without a path, Windows won't mount it for access. DiskPart wouldn't even clear it - your attributes command must have done something to allow everything to start working again. Nightmare nearly over now haha, thank you sir!

[@jay_alpha]

can u explain me in detail what to do

[@IBEWelectronut]

Thanks! You really made that so easy to follow. You're a Godsend. Thank you so very much.

[@Britec09]

Thanks for the donation 👍

[@kritishshrestha9894]

Damn after watching 25 videos, I have finally found video that solved my problem. Literally I was so fed up that I was gonna crush my usb.

[@peterpauldonoghue7024]

Thank You for making and uploading this Video .. I'm having a Problem with a USB Drive .. I followed your instructions - but got this .. "" DISKPART> attributes disk clear readonly Disk attributes cleared successfully. DISKPART> clean DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk. DISKPART> create partition primary No usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset. Specify different size and offset values or don't specify either to create the maximum sized partition. It may be that the disk is partitioned using the MBR disk partitioning format and the disk contains either 4 primary partitions, (no more partitions may be created), or 3 primary partitions and one extended partition, (only logical drives may be created). DISKPART>

[@thonkaro4374]

I had a pendrive which was used on MacOS and the disk manager wouldn't format it or give it a letter. Then I found this video and with the command prompt inputs it worked like a charm. Thanks dude!

[@DevilbyMoonlight]

A relatively little known and forgotten shortcut feature of diskpart that has been in there since the days of NT is the fact you only need to type in enough of most commands and arguments that will uniquely identify them, in most cases the 1st 3 characters of most commands and arguments are enough eg: lis dis sel dis 2 att dis clear readonly cle cre par pri ass letter=z for quick

[@Britec09]

that is correct, I try and keep full commands so people learn easier

[@Grimoor]

thank you Brian, been coming for years for every screw up i did to my pc, cant believe its now my flash drive, followed step by step and fixed it perfectly, thanks again.

[@srbandel]

Dear Britec09, I am unable to go beyond "Clean", since the error says "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. See the System Event Log for more information." Kindly help

[@luckydepressedguy8981]

same lol still no fix on it ?

[@Sonsho]

anything?

[@billrussells2521]

Britec is the best. Every tutorial I have watched in this channel has never failed. Still following you guys since 2017. I just subbed here with my other account. Thanks again men. You are a genius

[@NefariousEnough]

This is perfect!! I've been searching for an hour for this walkthrough. Thanks!!

[@Karadenizligamer]

After i write "clean" and run it says this error - DiskPart has encountered an error: G/C The request could not be executed due to a device problem. See the System Event Log for more information. what should i do

[@wungabunga]

try a different format. Mine failed on fat 32 but worked on ntfs.

[@lesliesavage9229]

I had this problem on Windoze 10, and this is too much work. I normally use Linux, so I put the USB drive in Linux and took care of it. Microsoft needs to fix this problem, because I got a feeling it is more common than we might think. Good video for anyone without a Linux computer.

[@RevNicholasJonsson]

Thank you!!!! This video came in time to prevent me from throwing away a couple of "damaged" flash drives. I love the content... keep them coming :-)

[@Britec09]

Thanks for watching

[@charlesxix]

Me too.

[@marisaeggs]

your videos are honestly legendary, by far my favourite tech support youtuber on this platform

[@unowho117]

Thank you! Can't believe how simply and easy this was. You explained it very well

[@TheSilverGate]

Thank you a 1000 times. I tried it all, only your solution worked

[@XimenaMacias-q4v]

I spent hours looking for a solution... THANK YOU SO MUCH.

[@kevinthegerbil2708]

Saved my day, thanks. Very easy and clear instructions helped. Other vids not really helped. This worked first and every time.

[@ancor07]

After I click create partition primary, I received this error Message: (No usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset. Specify different size and offset values or don't specify either to create the maximum sized partition. It may be that the disk is partitioned using the MBR disk partitioning format and the disk contains either 4 primary partitions, (no more partitions may be created), or 3 primary partitions and one extended partition, (only logical drives may be created).

[@matiaswetzel]

same here. could u fix it already?

[@anandinsaan4593]

​@@matiaswetzel what about you same prblm 😅😅

[@gardensindeze2568]

hey Britec09 at step " format fs=ntfs quick " responds " 0 percent completed " also " Diskpart has encounter an error : the parameter is incorrect . see the system event log for more information . " so what shall i do ? ?

[@koushikv9561]

Same problem

[@ThePaulg123]

That was so seamless and straightforward your steps, thank you 🙏🏻

[@GhazanfarZaidi-r3q]

Amazingly, your tip solved my problem. In my case partition was not seen, but volume was seen. I selected volume and rest i did as you said. It is so good tip. Thanks a lot.

[@nicklloyd6219]

Not working for me - I get to the clean stage then i get the message "diskpart has encountered an error: A device which does not exist was specified. I believe the issue lies in that I tried to download windows media creation tool onto the drive and the internet cut out half way through installing it onto the usb drive and can't format it in any way since then. Any ideas?

[@thegamechanger9124]

Same

[@mohammadab3434]

same

[@spiritofunknowngamer9795]

Same

[@nikhilkalshetty6526]

It worked for me you might have missed something

[@wowcals]

Same

[@shawnhohmann1510]

I was using rufus to write this thumb drive and windows defender didnt like something, halted the operation and rendered the drive useless, providing no further info. This got it working again ! thank you thank you.

[@Mr2Rikable]

thanks a lot, the only person who actually helped with a working instruction guide. I thought i fried my usb stick or something

[@markanderson2155]

Awesome! I love it when you show and instruct us on how to properly use the command prompt. I am somewhat familiar with this from the old DOS days, but could not remember all the commands. That's how I first learned computers. The command prompt is very useful but sometimes scary. That's one of the reasons why I love it when you do these videos on it. Way too many commands for me to remember. But still it's kinda fun to do. Thank you Brian.

[@Britec09]

You're very welcome!

[@ABWEndon]

Thank you so much for this tutorial. It worked like a dream and rescued an unusable USB drive.

[@Ratchet_effect]

Wow! Brain Its been 1 year and 1 million views since you did "How to fix USB drive not recognized in Windows 10" Its crazy how they tried to kill DOS but you can still do the Dos style commands in windows 11 decades later 🤓👍🏻

[@Britec09]

I should of probably titled it windows11 because am on Windows 11, but its the same thing really

[@MacysShopLifter]

Thanks you! This work great! I literally tried every other thing I could find on KZbin before finally fixing the issue with your video.

[@my-yt-inputs2580]

Interesting. I've never used the "attributes disk clear readonly" command/switch. I've only simply used the Clean command which seems to work good enough. What does the attributes command do that Clean doesn't do?

[@darkspongebob11]

its meant to stop the drive from having any sort of locks that would prevent it from being able to modify the content of the drive i had this issue with 2 of my drives and throught that would fix it unfoutnaly it didnt but yeah that commands purpose is completyly diffrrent

[@aghabilal8200]

I have tried all the other ways to fix my usb but I wasn't able to fix it. I tried the first method is this video and I was able to fix it in seconds! 👍 Thanks alot!

[@welcomea6304]

Lovely, I don't regretting clicking on your vidoe, almost gave up on the 1st video I came across when a gent stated it's corrupted or unretrievable. Clearly you know your stuff!

[@vagabond-xd1vd]

Thank you!!! you really helped me my problem was "This disk is write protected" I tried other solutions on google and youtube, but non of them worked, but your method is works really well.

[@globalpropertysolutionindi6466]

Thank you so much Sir🙏🙏. It really worked

[@JR0458]

Fantastic! I've tried dos commands and did not work. Added "Clean" and "create primary" to my steps and it worked!!! Thanks Britec09!!

[@mjpfeif]

Thank you, this worked perfectly! This helped saved my USB stick. You saved me a lot of time and headache!

[@KaRtHiK-kf5np]

Was just having this problem, and your Video Came right on time. Thnx

[@Britec09]

Glad it helped

[@akiyoshidoug]

This is the only solution that worked for my USB drive. Thank you!

[@maximumpotential3796]

Thankyou for saving me loads of trouble. Did it and it works.

[@Salami12331]

What to do if after step 5 command "clean" i got error: "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. See the System Event Log for more information." Edit:i changed usb slot and after clean i got "No usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset. Specify different size and offset values or don't specify either to create the maximum sized partition. It may be that the disk is partitioned using the MBR disk partitioning format and the disk contains either 4 primary partitions, (no more partitions may be created), or 3 primary partitions and one extended partition, (only logical drives may be created)."

[@imispmw]

I thought my USB is a goner after I used it to download some file to fix my phone, but now it working again, thank you very much 💕

[@karandonga9326]

Wow, you are a tech god. I try everything online, and your solutions work fine every time for different things. This might be the 12 issue I faced and solved by you again. Thanks a lot for making our problems a little easier 🙂

[@speaktruth2830]

Hi there, When I enter create partition primary i get this message "No usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset. Specify different size and offset values or don't specify either to create the maximum sized partition. It may be that the disk is partitioned using the MBR disk partitioning format and the disk contains either 4 primary partitions, (no more partitions may be created), or 3 primary partitions and one extended partition, (only logical drives may be created).

[@nsstudio908]

Wow Thanks a lot man. Still now working. This is the real content.

[@jongbong]

everything was okay until after i typed format fs=ntfs quick, it says dispart has encountered an error: the parameter is incorrect. see the system event log for more information. i checked the event log. it just shows the the time and error. what should i do next?

[@nyxmejia]

Hi! I would like to ask what to do if there's no prompt on-going after DISPART> create partition primary

[@mikenow3050]

This also worked on a faulty USB stick. But did full format, it took a while but now works great thanks.

[@GhostRiderX7]

You are a genious sir!! It worked like a charm. Thank you very much for your help, you have a new subscriber to your channel.

[@hamoodsherif]

I was struggling man u are the best this video get five stars it was really helpful thanks ❤️

[@legiahuy9436]

I have an error at 3:02, it said: "DiskPart has encountered an error: A device which does not exist was specified. See the System Event Log for more information." help me plz

[@Badusername2000]

got an error when i went did the clean command

[@rolandjerez2688]

same

[@Invalidinput]

Great video! Your clear and concise information helped me very well. Thank you!

[@TITANa7x]

IT WORKED IT WORKED IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!! I built a custom gaming PC and I was reusing an older CPU so I saved up some money to buy a new one, but I wanted to make sure that I knew everything before I did it cause I didn’t wanna accidentally forget to do a step and possibly risk ruiningmy motherboard so people said that I had to update my bios before I installed this new CPU and I had a flash travel laying around which I used before but it wasn’t letting me format it to FAT 32 and it wasn’t letting me format it to anything in fact, but I used it before so I knew that it worked at one point so after watching this video, it really freaking worked

[@finkitsallover]

I went through so many videos and all of them were missing the part where you enter "format fs=fat32 quick" thanks for the video as my USB had many issues after installing the Zorin boot media

[@DerpyUniverse]

When attempting to clear the drive it says access is denied, even after trying to clear read only 3 times I keep getting this error when clearing afterwards

[@TheLegendMaster]

I've got a problem with a brand new drive which is now raw, when I try your method, I can't create the 'partition primary' as it says 'no usable free extent could be found'.

[@HTWwpzIuqaObMt]

got a "Windows has scanned the file and found problems" message but no further information. Any way to check on the full error and any solutions?

[@NEDCODEV]

Holy.. someone actually knows what he's talking about. It took me 3 articles, 5-6 videos on KZbin and all of them didn't fix my issue. Thank you @Britec09 your method actually saved my USB!

[@fredtrucker2432]

"The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error." Hi Brian, I get this error when trying to clean(#6), is that a hardware fault?

[@hatifshahid4446]

Same here bro .. Did u find that solution ??

[@fredtrucker2432]

@@hatifshahid4446 yup, my solution was to place that drive in the garbage container lul

[@hatifshahid4446]

Ohh what should I do 😔 I don't want to through it in garbage

[@gordonalcindor1405]

When I attempt the "clean" function, I get this error: "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. See the System Event Log for more information." What can I do at this point?

[@dougherty1980]

I got the same problem

[@thatsalot3577]

Thanks man I can't express how grateful I am for this tutorial

[@Cherri_Bomb_01]

When I hit the part to create partition primary I get the responce "Virtual Disk Service error: There is not enough usable space for this operation." I'm working on a 1tb micro sd card.

[@chichioroxon4569]

i wondered if I was the only one, did you find a workaround?

[@Cherri_Bomb_01]

@@chichioroxon4569 No, sorry. Ended up just having to bite the bullet and buy another sd card.

[@chichioroxon4569]

@@Cherri_Bomb_01 I’m looking for a way to reformat my bootable drives so mines an issue with my file system format. If you’ve already tried chkdsk and shrinking the volume size and want to give this method one more shot try this on a different windows pc (preferably one running win 10) make sure it doesn’t have bitlocker enabled and you’re on as an administrator. I was able to successfully reformat my drivers that way and haven’t had any problems since. I know sd’s are fragile but what’s worse then having 1 tb of unusable storage hope this works for you!

[@stevegardiner8473]

Thanks, didn't work for me though. Mine won't even carry out the clean. If I then try to format I get this message." DISKPART has encountered an error: The system cannot find the file specified. See the System Event Log for more information."

[@DosBear]

I can't thank you enough for this vid. I was able to fix my acer computer by using this method to format my internal hard drive. I just had to delete all the partitions and format the full unallocated space using diskpart and follow your instructions which were very well done and easy to follow and see. All I had to do after doing that was change it to GPT and I was able to install a fresh Windows 10 OS. Cheers. I've been trying to fix this thing for over a year and if not for finding your vid I would have given up. So you saved me large bud, thank-you.

[@yuvarudra6602]

Thankz for the wonderfull video. Solved my problem. Liked & subscribed. 😊

[@postwaleed]

Thanks for the instruction. However, as I proceeded, I received a prompt stating "no volume selected". I could only end the session. Any suggestions?

[@CerebrumTickle]

i guess you forgot to select the disk that you want to format, watch the video again from 1:07

[@joea9222]

The only video that actually fixed my issue.

[@paulgregory9248]

This is the only video that worked for me. Thank you so much.

[@LiberalCreations]

Also can't format it. Nothing happens. This is an unused SSD drive in a USB case that has USB A at one end and USB C at the other end. It's literally just barely recognizable on my system at all. I'm wondering if it's the case instead of the drive. I tried re-seating the drive and it's not making any difference. I also tried updating the drive's drivers and that didn't help either.

[@emmadax]

so when I try to put create partition primary it says "There is not enough usable space for this operation." what does this mean?

[@derekp2674]

Thanks Brian that is really useful. It is interesting to see examples of windows tasks that need to be done from the terminal.

[@Colo2K]

Thank you for this, saved my 128gb usb! Earned a sub.

[@MF-le7fp]

Thanks for the tutorial. Worked like a champ. At the end, you checked the freshly cleaned, partitioned, and formatted drive for "viruses." Where might a virus reside on that drive, at this point?

[@BenB810]

Aye it worked! Thanks for your help :)

[@amgrig]

Thank you for this tutorial! I managed to format an Samsung EVO 8 used previously as system disk in an desktop computer, than as an USB drive. With windows disk management utility I had no options to format entire disk but thanks to your tutorial, it was very simple.👍

[@MichaelandCathy1999]

Just a quick question about the partition I’ll use for a Linux install…should the partition be formatted as Fat32 or NTFS? I’m going to be installing Zorin 16 after I saw your excellent vid the other day and want to do some practicing on this OS.

[@Britec09]

USB drive can be either Fat32 or NTFS

[@MichaelandCathy1999]

@@Britec09 but if I’m installing on a hard drive, does it matter which format? Fat32 or NTFS?

[@MichaelandCathy1999]

@@Britec09 well, I went and done it, now running dual boot with Win10 and Zorin 16, absolutely no problem and running like a boss. Beautiful OS and just “discovering” it slowly.

[@TobiasSteiner]

Litreally recovered a small batch of Sandisk 32GB drives this way. 🙏Thank you so much!

[@pizzapandalive]

and when "clean" doesnt work? Error in diskpart. even chkdsk doesnt work, too. FAT1 and FAT2 error.

[@copyandpastification]

thank you, I was going to buy a new usb memory stick but you saved the day

[@dp-bc8ii]

thanks my dude, in my case it initiated formatting but could never be completed. i just waited for it to finish like a moron till I found this video.

[@paysonwilliams6124]

after diskpart> clean, a problem occurred. "A device which does not exist was specified", no idea what to do now

[@qleartearcrusade9361]

Followed the steps but was asked to "list volume". I have NO IDEA what that is or what it means. Is there a step missing???

[@safeengineeringsound1439]

after writing clean i am facing this problem DiskPart has encountered an error: The semaphore timeout period has expired. See the System Event Log for more information. please help to solve this problem

[@Cytorak54]

can't format still in cmd, it says " DiskPart has encountered an error: The parameter is incorrect. See the System Event Log for more information."

[@ICHRISTER1]

Thank you so much for this video, I managed to restore 3 non functional USB sticks just by formatting them and than using this tutorial, nothing else worked for me

[@Britec09]

You are welcome!

[@LNV2HA1.OFFICIAL]

Can we copy and paste except for the disk 2 please?

[@ron.cortez]

Hey bro what is the of your Windows 10 theme?

[@johnbowles4754]

How can you remember so much of the commands in rectifying problems, I'm in awe of your knowledge, keep up the good work, your videos are very helpful. 👍 😎

[@ivaniusmetal]

Hi! I am getting this error after executing the comment "clean": DiskPart has encountered an error: A device which does not exist was specified. See the System Event Log for more information. can you help me, please?

[@aminipo8829]

What did you do to show an image or icon to show in large size on the right side and the names on the left?

[@Britec09]

Windows 11

[@aminipo8829]

@@Britec09 already found that in view section. And yeah i am also running windows 11. Thanks for the reply.

[@Andrael]

When prompting "create parittion primary" it says my USB flash drive doesn't have enough space to do that, despite it not being the case

[@ypwygk652]

Thank you, it was very useful.. Please keep making such videos You have a thousand likes My flash problem has been solved

[@kadenloghry-bp8st]

thank you this is the only video that worked. THANK YOU SO MUCH👍

[@AmmarEng-he3tf]

Hello Dear, My SD card refused formatting. I followed you step by step, when I put (creat partition primary) at prompt command it gave me this message : ( no usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset. Specify different size and offset values or don't specify either to create the maximum sized partition. It may be that the disk is partitioned using the MBR disk partitioning format and the disk contains either 4 primary partitions, , or 3 primary partitions and one extended partition, .)

[@tamarsicristian]

very very good. Took me 5 minutes to solve this problem, after many hours of frustration

[@fredericp64]

Would this work on a hard drive too tyyyyy!!! Trying toj install windows 10 on a PC that was configured as a raid. Not recognizing any disks.

[@paulwarner5395]

Thanx for that. I haven't come across this issue but have bookmarked this video. Could you have done this from the Windows Disk manager??

[@mounikavaranasi4781]

while i entered the exit, the command prompt is closed unlike you got the option "leaving diskpart" and the next step is chkdse...... i didnt got this option? what to do... files are copying very slowly into the pendrive.