If you want to effectively and efficiently manage drives on your Windows 10 PC, you must know how to format a drive on Windows 10. For your information, Windows 10 currently allows people to format their drives via File Explorer, Settings, Disk Management and Command Prompt. Not exactly tech-savvy and have difficulty formatting the drives? In that case, this article is going to be of use to you.
Table of Contents
Formatting Drives On Windows 10: Instructions
- Step 1: Press Windows + E to open File Explorer, locate This PC and hit it.
- Step 2: Right-click the drive you want to format then pick Format.
- Step 3: Configure your format options, confirm your decision and wait as Windows formats the drive.
Va Settings
- Step 1: Press Windows + I to open Settings.
- Step 2: Select System, choose Storage and hit Manage Disks and Volumes under More storage settings.
- Step 3: Click the drive you want to format, pick the partition and hit Properties.
- Step 4: Choose Format, configure your format options and select Format.
Via Disk Management
- Step 1: Press Windows key, type Disk Management and hit Enter.
- Step 2: From the list of your drives, right-click the drive you would like to format and pick Format.
- Step 3: Configure your format options then hit OK to initiate the process.
Via Diskpart
- Step 1: Press Windows key, type cmd and hit run as administrator.
- Step 2: In Command Prompt (Admin), run each of these commands:
- Diskpart
- list disk
- Step 3: Note down the disk number then proceed to run the commands down below in Command Prompt (Admin). Remember to substitute the actual disk number for disk#.
- select disk #
- format fs=ntfs quick label=backup
- Step 4: Allow the process to go all the way.
- Step 4: Restart your computer.
What Are The Different Types Of File Systems?
Windows has three types of file systems i.e NTFS, FAT32 and FAT16. FAT, short for File Allocation Table, is a common format for external drives while New Technology File System (NTFS) is common with internal drives.
“Windows Was Unable To Complete The Format”: Troubleshooting
Create Partition
- Step 1: Press Windows key, type diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter to open Disk Management.
- Step 2: Right-click the disk tha Windows was unable to format then pick New simple volume.
- Step 3: Select Format this volume with the following settings and choose the following options:
- File system: FAT
- Allocation unit size: Default
- Volume label: New volume
- Step 4: Uncheck the Perform a quick format checkbox then hit Next.
Apply Changes To The Registry
- Step 1: Press Windows key, type regedit and hit Enter.
- Step 2: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies
- Step 3: Look to the right, right-click WriteProtect, pick Modify and set its value as 0.
- Step 4: Save your changes, restart your computer and format the drive one more time.
How To Address The Error “Access Denied”
In most of the cases, the “Access denied” error is the result of permission issues. Therefore, it’s a good idea to log in as an administrator then give formatting one more go. If the issue persists, tweak your permissions.
- Step 1: Open File Explorer, go to This PC, right-click the drive that is acting up and pick Properties.
- Step 2: Go Security tab then hit Advanced.
- Step 3: From the list of permission entries, select Administrators, check the Replace owner on subcontainers and object checkbox, choose Apply and hit OK to save your changes.
- Step 4: Return to Properties and hit Edit below Groups or usernames in the Security tab.
- Step 5: Hit Administrators then check the checkbox in the Allow column next to Full control. Last but not least, select Apply, choose OK and restart your computer.
“Connecting to Virtual Disk Service”: What Must Be Done
- Step 1: Press Windows key, type Services.msc and hit enter to open Windows Services.
- Step 2: From the list of services, right-click Remote Access Connection Manager then pick Properties.
- Step 3: In General tab, if Service status says Stopped, hit Start. On the other hand, if Service status says Running, hit Stop, wait for a bit and hit Start. Regardless, you should use the opportunity to change Startup type to Automatic.
- Step 4: Select Apply then choose OK to save changes.
- Step 5: Repeat the process for Virtual Disk Service. After you finish, restart your computer and see how things turn out.
