How to format USB 3.0 flash drive

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I would like to get some assistance in formatting my 3.0 USB flash drive. I have the latest version of Windows 10 21H2. I have never formatted it when I got it and I now am experiencing issues with it freezing up. I know I’ll have to erase what’s on there, which is no problem.

Can someone please help me?

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As long as your computer is recognizing the drive, insert it into a port, open file explorer, right click on the drive in file explorer, select format from the context menu.

--Joe

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Does it matter which type of format to use?

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It depends on your usage. I usually choose NTFS because I work almost exclusively on Windows systems.

--Joe

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Thanks Joe.

I only need it for use with storing files from my desktop computer onto the flash drive with.

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Be sure to do a full format and not a quick format.  The full format will isolate bad sectors and not use them, which is most likely the reason it froze up.

HTH, Dana>>

HTH, Dana:))

5 users thanked author for this post.

Microfix, Bill C., Sky, Rush2112, CraigS26

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I have performed a formatting of my USB drive, however I am still experiencing my computer to freeze up/lock up for moments at a time. I tried to put a new folder into the USB drive and couldn’t even rename the folder. I could get maybe one letter of what I wanted to name the folder before my computer locked up however temporarily it may have been. Could I have a bad USB flash drive or other issues with my computer???

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Are you using a 3.0 USB port on your PC?  Try a 2.0 USB port and see what happens.  Your description of starting a rename and freezing points to a USB port driver problem rather than the USB flash drive.  Do have another flash drive to try?

BTW: I have found that I get better results with the exFAT format rather than the NTFS format.

 

HTH, Dana>>

 

HTH, Dana:))

2 users thanked author for this post.

Rush2112, Sky

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Thanks, your suggestions helped me out a lot. I did as suggested and I no longer have any issues like what I was experiencing previously.

Thank you, you were a big help.

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You are welcome.

Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

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Look out Hewlett Packard USB format tool.

ExFAT efficiency is better with large devices: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT#Efficiency).

Perhaps to gage reliability scan it with Zero assumption recovery (free version) – If you watch the recovery as it runs, it logs the drive access conditions as it runs so if you see errors and retries clocking up maybe the media is unreliable.

Then again some AV solutions are just not that good at scanning corrupt volumes (which can cause the USB to effectively disappear from the system for the extended scan duration) so formatting alone might resolve the issue.

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Procedures discussed are the same for all USB drives. OTOH, not all drives are the same quality. Familiar brand names is not a guarantee. Quality and speed can range from abysmal to outstanding. Some good USB2 are faster than poor USB3. You ‘usually/mostly’ get what you pay for.
So….you may be having a problem with a bad device if the [formatting] procedures don’t fix things.

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@rush2112, what capacity is the USB flash drive in question?

It’s probably pretty obvious, but I don’t understand why NTFS was problematic but exFat wasn’t unless the capacity was a high capacity?

HP EliteBook 8540w laptop Windows 10 Pro (x64)

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NTFS has two formats – MBR and GPT

NTFS – MBR on the flash drive and NTFS – GPT on the PC that is being accessed.  This requires the GPT to utilize its reserved MBR (kept for backward compatibility) to talk to the drive.  Sometimes this backward compatibility function tries to treat the flash drive as a dynamic disk extension from the PC’s disks, which sends additional coding the flash drive can’t handle.  Result: jumbled file names and lost file locations.

You can work around these problems, but why?  None of these problems exist with exFAT format.  Macs can use the exFAT format, so an exFAT formatted stick moves files for Windows and Macs.  Microsoft created exFAT for large (>32GB) flash drives.

HTH, Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

1 user thanked author for this post.

cmptrgy

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Thanks Dana, I understand your explanation very well. However, as a simple PC user, I need clarifications many times & yours is well explained. I was under the impression the USB flash drive in question had a higher capacity than 32GB and I’m glad the solution has been solved.

HP EliteBook 8540w laptop Windows 10 Pro (x64)

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