How To Reformat A Flash Drive Windows 7

Help: cannot reformat c drive So, I've got Windows 7 RC1 installed on my D drive, and now my C drive which has XP installed on it, has a virus. I need to reformat it, but when I try to 'Right Click - Format' windows won't let me / won't do it. Thanks in advance. Hardware & Devices. Reformatting your drive in Windows Open up your 'My Computer' (or 'Computer' in Vista) from the Start Menu and look for the drive that has a 'Removable Disk' icon. This is usually assigned to the last drive letter and may show multiple drives if multiple devices are plugged in. Right-click on the device you wish to format and select 'Format'. Insert windows 7 CD / USB Flash drive. Insert the CD containing the windows 7 installer on the CD-ROM of your computer. The CD-ROM needs a power supply to operate hence you need to open your computer first. After inserting the CD, you can proceed to the next step. Restart then press F2.

1. How To Reformat And Reinstall Windows 7
2. Reformat Computer Windows 7
3. How To Reformat A Flash Drive Windows 7 Desktop

Windows 7 does not have a native option for formatting adrive in FAT32 format through the GUI; it does have theNTFS and exFAT file system options, but these are not aswidely compatible as FAT32.

While Windows Vista does have a FAT32 option, no version ofWindows can format a disk larger than 32 GB as FAT32.

Therefore, to format a drive in FAT32 format, you will have to eitheruse a third-party FAT32 format utility, or manually force Windows toformat your drive as FAT32 from the command line usingdiskpart.

Note: It is not suggested that youperform a 'quick format'. The standard format can take significantlylonger, but quick format does not reliably remove some of the previousinformation; this can cause the new boot record not to work correctly.Disk format utilities work on a level lower than you may be typicallyused to seeing, and typically do not display identifiers like the 'C:'or 'D:' drives. If you format the wrong disk, there is very littlepossibility of recovering the data on that disk. Format utilities dotypically show the drive size; use that information to identify thecorrect disk.

How To Reformat And Reinstall Windows 7

Using a third-party utility

Several utilities exist to perform this operation; one is Partition Manager from Active@.This utility is fairly simple to use; however, it does show you allthe disks and partitions on your machine, so be sure to choose thecorrect one.

Reformat Computer Windows 7

Manually forcing Windows to format as FAT32

How To Reformat A Flash Drive Windows 7 Desktop

1. In the Start menu, type cmd, and then click the entry for the cmd program.
2. At the command prompt, enter diskpart (you might have to approve this operation as an administrator). The prompt line should now display 'DISKPART'.
3. Enter list disk.
4. Enter select disk X, where X is the number of your selected disk.
5. Enter clean.
6. Enter create partition primary.
7. Enter select partition 1.
8. Enter active.
9. Enter format fs=fat32.
10. Enter assign.
11. Enter exit.

You will be back at the standard command prompt. You can now placebootable media on the flash drive and use it as a bootablemedium.

Windows 7 does not have a native option for formatting adrive in FAT32 format through the GUI; it does have theNTFS and exFAT file system options, but these are not aswidely compatible as FAT32.

While Windows Vista does have a FAT32 option, no version ofWindows can format a disk larger than 32 GB as FAT32.

Therefore, to format a drive in FAT32 format, you will have to eitheruse a third-party FAT32 format utility, or manually force Windows toformat your drive as FAT32 from the command line usingdiskpart.

Note: It is not suggested that youperform a 'quick format'. The standard format can take significantlylonger, but quick format does not reliably remove some of the previousinformation; this can cause the new boot record not to work correctly.Disk format utilities work on a level lower than you may be typicallyused to seeing, and typically do not display identifiers like the 'C:'or 'D:' drives. If you format the wrong disk, there is very littlepossibility of recovering the data on that disk. Format utilities dotypically show the drive size; use that information to identify thecorrect disk.

Using a third-party utility

Several utilities exist to perform this operation; one is Partition Manager from Active@.This utility is fairly simple to use; however, it does show you allthe disks and partitions on your machine, so be sure to choose thecorrect one.

Manually forcing Windows to format as FAT32

1. In the Start menu, type cmd, and then click the entry for the cmd program.
2. At the command prompt, enter diskpart (you might have to approve this operation as an administrator). The prompt line should now display 'DISKPART'.
3. Enter list disk.
4. Enter select disk X, where X is the number of your selected disk.
5. Enter clean.
6. Enter create partition primary.
7. Enter select partition 1.
8. Enter active.
9. Enter format fs=fat32.
10. Enter assign.
11. Enter exit.

You will be back at the standard command prompt. You can now placebootable media on the flash drive and use it as a bootablemedium.