Several CMD Lines to Format USB on Windows 10

Speaking of formatting USB drives on Windows 10, there's no way to skip using command prompt - just several commands and a couple of steps could nail it down. Go through this article, let's get to see how to format USB drive using CMD seriously.

Step 1: Figure out what type of format and file system are required

Before formal format process, users have to decide what kind of file system they need and which kind of format is good for USB flash drive. For example, if user is trying to change a USB flash drive into a bootable media, NTFS is recommended. If you desire to get to know more about file system, this article might help.

File System: NTFS vs FAT32 vs exFAT

And what kind of format do you want? If it's necessary to give the USB drive a thorough clearance, full format is strong recommended. If you don't want to wait that long and the files are not hurry to be permanently deleted, a quick format will be alright.

Quick Format vs Full Format

Step 2: Open Command Prompt

Here are two ways to open Command Prompt.

Way 1: Open CMD with Search box. Press Win + S, and type "CMD", there it will be.

Way 2: Open CMD with RUN. Press Win + R, type "CMD", and press Enter. Command Prompt will pop up.

Step 3: Format USB drive using command

diskpart: open diskpart.exe

list disk: display a list of disks in this computer

select disk *: classify which disk is the USB flash drive, and shift the focus to it

clean: clear the configuration information, or all information, off the disk

format fs = ntfs: full format the USB drive and change its file system to NTFS

exit: exit diskpart.exe