Many people have needed to free their memories due to lack of space or simply format them, as they have also resorted to the help of other storage devices to store their documents. File systems manage the memory of USB drives , they also allocate space to documents, organizing them and registering them in the necessary category.
These systems have advantages and disadvantages when using them, that is why it is important to know them and select the ones that best suit the needs you have. Among these we have:
- The Fat32 system is the oldest but concurrent with most file devices.
- The NTFS system is a replica of Fat32, used in Windows and very useful for external drives.
- The exFat system is an improvement over Fat32 as it has a larger dictionary size and can be used in Windows, GNU, Linux and others, but only for new versions .
Next, we present different procedures to format a USB memory/Pendrive from CMD- Format Fat32, NTFS or exFat. To format and/or format USB drives and SD cards in Linux the procedure may be a bit different.
How to format a USB stick from a CMD?
Formatting a hard drive or USB memory immediately erases all data. For this reason, it is important to mention that it is recommended to back up the information before proceeding with the formatting through a backup copy of the content of your USB. The procedure to format from a CMD is easy and straightforward.
- If you have Windows 7, 8 or 10 type ” cmd ” in the search box.
- Then proceed to right-click the mouse and choose the option ” run as administrator .”
- A window will appear in it type ” diskpart ” press ” enter “.
- Transcribe ” list disk ” and accept the command on ” enter “.
- Check which disk your USB drive has .
- Type ” select disk ” adding the number corresponding to the USB drive and hit “enter”.
- Type ” clean .” This will take a little time.
- Copy “ create partition primary ” and tap on “ enter ”.
- Then write ” format fs = ntfs ” and hit ” enter “.
- Finally, type “assign” to set a new drive to the cmd drive .
Format a USB stick in NTFS
The devices of a hard disk or USB memory can be formatted in FAT32, NTFS, exFAT. When using them, some problems may arise due to low space or memory saturation. However, we will teach you how to format a USB memory to NTFS in this case .
- Open ” File Explorer .”
- Insert the USB memory into the computer, doing so may open a popup window with the different options for automatic playback.
- From the “file explorer” locate the USB drive .
- Press right click on the storage unit, thus will come out the outgoing menu options.
- Click on the ” Format ” option to take you to the internal Windows tool and you can execute the changes you want.
- Access ” File system “.
- Choose the new system you want to apply: NTFS.
- Finally, click ” start ” to start formatting.
Format a USB stick in Fat32
- Proceed to link the USB memory with your device.
- Take a detailed look at the letter of your drive, example “H”.
- Opens a CMD window with the administrator authorizations.
- Do this command modifying the drive letter “H:” by the character of the USB memory, that is: format / FS: FAT32 H:
- Touch the ” Enter ” option, wait a moment and then you will get the USB memory formatted in FAT32.
Another tool to format USB sticks in Fat32
If you are not an expert user of the command prompt , or simply for some reason you do not like using it, you can go to another tool called Fat32 Format. Working with it is easy, free and allows you to format any type of USB memory regardless of its volume to FAT32. Make the most of this tool as follows:
- Start by downloading the application from the main web portal.
- Run it.
- Select the letter of the drive that we want to format to FAT32
- Finally, the program alone will do the rest.