Removing partitions from a USB thumb drive
So… a while back I was playing around with Linux and needed a bootable install disc. I decided to make one of my spare USB thumb drives into one. All went well, and I successfully installed Ubuntu Server on my machine. Great.
Fast forward to this morning when I needed said thumb drive to transfer some pretty hefty files. Low and behold, my 4GB thumb drive was being read as a 2MB thumb drive. No problem… just format the thing, right? Uh… no. Apparently not.
To create the install disk, I used a nice little program called Image Writer for Windows It worked great, but unfortunately it partitioned my thumb drive, and Windows 7, for some reason, couldn’t get rid of the partitions when I tried to format it. Bleh. Thankfully, Google is always there when I need it.
It turns out there’s utility in Windows 7 (and probably other Windows versions as well, but I’m using 7) called Diskpart that will fix this problem right up for you. Here’s how to use it to format a USB drive.
- Bring up the command prompt. Easiest way is to go to the Start menu and type in “cmd” in the search box and hit enter.
- In the command prompt window, type “diskpart”. That will launch another window with a DISKPART> prompt.
- Type “list disk” to find out which disk your USB drive is. It should be pretty obvious from the size of the disk. If it’s not, alternatively, you can search “Computer Management” under the Start menu, and then click on “Disk Management”. You should see something that says “Disk 1 Removeable” or something similar.
- Once you know which disk you want, in the Diskpart window, type “select disk 1” (or whatever number your thumb drive happens to be assigned to). Diskpart should tell you that this is now the selected disk,
- Type “clean”. This will get rid of all the old information on the disk, as well as any partitions. Diskpart will tell you when this has succeeded.
- Type “create partition primary”. This sets up the new partition (one big one instead of a small one) for the drive.
- Type “select partition 1” to select the partition you just created.
- Type “active” to mark the selected partition as active.
- Type “format fs=ntfs quick” to format the drive. This may take a few minutes depending on the size of the drive.
- Type “assign”.
- Type “exit” to leave the Diskpart program.
Now remove the thumb drive from the USB port, and then plug it back in. It should come up at its original size. Ta-da!
Just as a word of caution, Diskpart doesn’t seem to have any confirmation prompts built into it. So BE CAREFUL which drive you’re telling it to use, or you might end up formatting something that shouldn’t be formatted.
You are simply Great!!
Brilliant, thanks. Well written, clear instructions. Works a treat on Windows 10 Pro, clearing out a 32GB flash drive I’d used to make a bootable Yosemite install drive for ‘er indoors’s iMac.
Thanks Very Much. FYI This procedure works on Windows 10 as well.
Good straightforward advice. Worked perfectly!
Thanks so much! It totally worked, and you had great instructions and descriptions so I knew I was doing it right!
Well, this isnt working for me. What do I do when it says “No usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified blah ,blah blah.” when I type in the “create partition primary” command. PLS HELP BIBLETHUMp
I have the same problem, did you find a solution?
i have also same problem. plz help??
thx you very much. it s work . 10/10 easy. take only 30 seconds.
I love you in more ways than one.
How to fix this? Am i doing something wrong?
http://i.imgur.com/HCzv73m.png
OK here’s one for you….I plug in my thumb drive, go into disk management. I see my C drive and I see 2 removable disk drives. Drive E and Drive F. Both with 4GB of space on them. Both Drive E and F are on that 1 thumb drive. Can they (D and E) be combined to make a 1 8GB thumb drive?
IT CANT WORKS ON MY PENDRIVE
a little hiccup on first attempt from windows 10 but worked fine on second attempt
Thank you very much! This worked and was very well explained.
Worked great. Thanks for such easy, clear directions. I had to reformat a thumb drive that I used to set up for a Chromebook recovery, so I wanted to eliminate its partition and get the whole 32 gb back.
U Rockkkk! It was great! Thank you so much.
it didnt work….. i still read two drives and i did it for the both drives….. still reading 2 drives
Awsome thanks
Perfect! Thank you. Also works with Win10
Thank You!!!
Works great!
Very quick and actually worked.
100/100
This post of yours should come up first in Google search!!! I have read so many posts. None of them are effective over such a large amount of plaforms!
You’re a champion!!!
This saved my brand new 32gd micro SD card. I let a friend use it to watch movies off of and she reformated it to a 1gd. Some how she reformated the SD card on her Xbox 1. With your great instructions my wife was able to fix it in less than a minute. You’re awesome thanks!!!
Thank you ! You’re so Brilliant !
Wow, worked like a charm
Thank you! My 64gb is now back to its old self again. Your instructions are EXCELLENT. Microsoft need to give you a job re-writing their horrible instructions 🙂
Thank you!
Much appreciated. This worked on my Windows 10 Surface. My employee (a Mac only user) “formatted” a 64GB flash drive for me, which ended up looking like 2MB to my Windows laptop. Voila, your instructions worked to a tee! Once it was clean, I just went in and used the Window formatting to exFAT and it’s all good. I will repeat your warning though, be careful you don’t erase the wrong drive!
thx!!!
solved my issue. yeah, instructions well written.
Just used this today to partition a new 3TB HDD that wasn’t showing up. Ran the cmd prompt but now the PC is only recognizing 500mb of the new disc.. any thoughts?
does it takes time to format