Flash disks and all other storage media need to be cleaned or formatted in order to get rid of viruses or change their formatting systems as required. You can either format a flash graphically by clicking or by using the command line prompt. Today, I am going to show you different ways of How to format FAT32 flash using CMD and any other methods that are eligible for our topic today. If you have ever tried to format your USB drive, especially in Windows XP, you’ll mostly find the option for FAT and FAT32 file systems, which is the default behavior.
Steps to format FAT32 flash using Graphical means
Plugin Your Flash
Plugin your USB flash drive into a USB slot on your computer and wait for a moment until the computer detects your device.
Open “My Computer”
Open “My Computer” and right-click on your USB drive and select the “Format” option. A dialog box will open in which all available formatting options can be seen
Alternatively, you can press the windows button together with E. A dialogue box will appear showing different storage spaces available or which are currently attached to your machine.
Select Your Format
You should have four different options:
File system
Allocation unit size
Volume label
Format options
Make sure that the drive selected is correct and the file system is set to what you desire. Simply make your selection and click “Start” > “OK” to confirm that you want to erase the data inside your USB flash drive completely and get the drive formatted
Steps to format FAT32 flash using CMD
Now that we learned how to format using the clicking method or graphical method above, we shall proceed with our focus how to format FAT32 flash using CMD. Lets look at the below steps.
1. Plug in your USB flash drive
2. Go to “start” > “all accessories” > “command prompt”
3. Type “format Z: /fs:FAT“ for formatting to FAT*
4. Type “format Z: /fs:EXFAT“ for formatting to EXFAT
5. *Z is the letter of your memory stick.
6. Press Y=Yes or N=No to proceed with or stop the formatting
Important Note for Formatting to NTFS
If you are formatting to the NTFS file system, then you’ll need to enable the “removal policy” of the USB flash drive to the “better performance” option. This can be done easily using the following steps:
Right-click on the pen drive and choose “properties.”
Select the “hardware” tab and choose the USB flash drive/pen drive from the listed disks.
Click on “properties.”
Select the “policies” tab and enable the “better performance” option.
Click “OK.” Now you’ll be able to format the pen drive to NTFS directly or by using command prompt.