Step 4- You’ll need to create some ‘Unallocated space’ before you can split the drive, so once the Shrink Volume box pops up > enter the amount of space you want to allocate > & hit ‘Shrink’ button. Step 3- Go to the disk you want to create a partition on and right-click to find ‘Shrink Volume’ option. A list of all the existing and external drives will be presented on your screen. You can also open Disk Management by going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Click on Disk Management under Storage head on the left-hand side.
How to format usb drive diskpart windows#
Step 2- To get into Disk Management utility, go to the Windows search box and type ‘Disk Management’ > click the first result ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’ and select the hard drive you wish to split. Step 1- Connect the external hard drive you want to partition, with your system. The easiest & simplest way to split your hard drive is via using Windows’ built-in Disk Management tool. METHOD 1- Partition USB Drive Via Disk Management Utility
How to format usb drive diskpart how to#
Read next: How to format External Hard Drive or USB drive using Windows PowerShell.Note: To make sure that you don’t lose any data during the partitioning process, do create a backup of all your files and folders. DISKPART tool works differently compared to the standard format option in Windows. Post completion of all the tasks, the USB drive will be formatted, and it will be empty. Type Assign and hit Enter key to assign a letter to the newly formatted drive.Type Format fs=NTFS Quick and hit enter.Then type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY and hit enter.Next type SELECT DISK 2, and you will get a prompt Disk 2 is now the selected disk.This time you will notice an extra drive that you need to format.Now insert the USB drive, and then rerun the command.Type LIST DISK to list all the drives connected to the computer.After the UAC, it will open the Command Prompt which is running this tool.Type diskpart in the Run Prompt, and hit enter.Before running this tool, make sure to remove the USB drive. 2] Using Diskpart ToolĭISKPART is a powerful tool that you can use to manage all the partitions from the command line. Read: How to delete or format C drive using Command Prompt. If you want to format with your choice of options, we suggest you to reading everything about the Format command here. Unmounting will make sure all the processes accessing the drive will stop. Its because some process is still accessing it. Enter Y, and it will dismount the volume to format it.Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) Format may run if this volume is dismounted first.ĪLL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Just hit the Enter key again.įormat cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. It will prompt you to enter a new disk for Drive I.Type CMD in the Run Prompt, and hit enter to open the Command Prompt.Make sure no copy process is in progress, and the drive is not open in the explorer.If you use an incorrect drive letter, you will end up formating another partition and lose all the data. Identify the exact drive name of the USB drive. Plug in the USB drive you want to format, and open File Explorer. You can also use PowerShell instead of CMD. When using the Diskpart tool, you will need admin privileges. One is using a simple format command while the other is using Diskpart. When using the Command Prompt, you have two methods. However, if you want to format a USB pen drive using the Command Prompt, here is how you can do it in Windows 11/10/8/7. All you need to do is right-click on the drive, and select Format. For an end-user, formatting the USB drive is easy.