# Help with formatting usb flash drive that doesn't want to?



## jsinghay (Jun 28, 2012)

I have a 128gb usb flash drive that was in the ExFat file system format and after trying to format as a fat32 file system, during the process there was an error that completely wiped my flash drive out. My file system is now in the RAW format and the capacity has been erased and is now at 0 bytes. Every time I plug it in now it will tell me to format it so I click on format but nothing happens. The format screen that usually pops up doesn't. I have tried using the command prompt in windows with diskpart to format it but once it was done, an error saying the volume size is too big pops up and my flash drive is still left in file system RAW and with no file capacity. I did a lot of research online looking for a solution, so far no luck for me. Can anyone help me with this one?


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## BPCS (Jun 15, 2012)

Try taking a look at it in disk management. You could also try downloading a linux distro and using that to format it. Sometimes linux does things better than windows.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

As *BPCS *said, Go to Start/Search and type* diskmgmt.msc* right click the *diskmgmt *icon in the search results and *Run As Administrator.* In *Disk Management *right click the Disk # (ex) Disk 1, Disk 2 etc) where it says *RAW* and *Initialize* the drive. Once the drive is initialized you can Right click the *Unallocated Space* and Create a* New Simple Volume *and Format FAT32.


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## jsinghay (Jun 28, 2012)

i went to disk management and right clicked on disk 1 removable (E, only options I had is as follows from top to bottom- change letters and paths....; eject; properties; help. When I try to click on either one, nothing pops up. How do I initialize the drive?


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Right click On the box of the Disk # itself (Disk 1)You should have* initialize*. If not you can try highlighting the Volume/Partition, go up to the tool bar and click the *X, *this will delete the volume. Then you can Right click the *Unallocated Space* and Create a* New Simple Volume *and Format FAT32. If that fails, the drive has failed and needs to be replaced.


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## jsinghay (Jun 28, 2012)

@spunk, I right clicked on disk but there wasn't any* initialize* option on it so I just moved on to the next step by right clicking on the *unallocated space* and created a *new volume*, there wasn't any options for *formatting* in *FAT32*, only *NTFS* and *ExFAT*. I chose NTFS, I started formatting then there was another error; I forgot what it says, but after that it froze and was not responding so I close the program and tried to start over. I unplugged my usb flash drive, plugged it back in, and went back to disk management but it wasn't loading anything. So I decide to go to my computers to see if the drive loaded up and notice that my usb flash drive doesn't load up anymore. I loaded up *computer management* and clicked on the *device manager* to see if I had any errors and I had one.* Portable Devices* I had a yellow error mark on "*WPD FileSystem Volume Driver*" which is my flash drive. I *right click* on it and went to *properties*, under* device status* "*this device cannot be strated (code 10)*" error. I read on some sites it says to *uninstall everything* under *Universal Serial Bus controllers* one by one and then *restart cpu* and have windows reinstall them, so I did. Still have the errors. Spent hours looking for a solution, do you have any idea how to fix this one? Thanks

note: my usb flash drive will load on other cpu so I don't think that the usb is completely damaged. I tried to *format* on my *other cpu* but it was unsuccessful because my *file system*, *allocated unit size* was unknown.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Did you try to change the drive letter? The flash drive has problems and may not be able to be fixed. put it in the computer that does recognize the drive and go to *Disk Management* and highlight the partition/Volume and go up to the Tool bar and press the *X*. This will delete the volume. Now you can right click the *Unallocated Space *and created a new simple volume. If you do not have the choice of *FAT32* then format it* ExFAT*. you can also try downloading the ISO image for Magic Partition Manager and Delete the volume and format it with this tools


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