Windows was unable to complete the formatting usb flash external drive

Why Windows cannot format usb flash drive/disk

Formatting a removable disk is easy if your disk is a good one without logical or physical damage and it can easily be performed by Windows. You may format it by the following 2 ways to format a disk.

• Format removable disk by right click the media and then "Format" after you open My Computer or This PC.
• Format removable/internal hard drive via Disk Management if you right click 'This PC' and go to option 'Manage', and then select the partition you need to format and then it would offer the option 'Format'

However Windows may fail to format your media if it was damaged. It would popup the following error message.

Windows was unable to complete the format

There are several possible reasons why Windows reported it cannot format your disk or usb storage and mainly of them are the following:

How to recover data from corrputed external disk/flash drive if important

It is not necessary if there is no important data from the flash drive or disk that is now corrupted.

Part 1. Recover data from your media which wont format with iCare Data Recovery Pro

Download Free Now

Connect your media to your PC at first and then get the program iCare installed on your PC and run it.

Step 1: Choose a recovery mode 'Deep Scan Recovery' is recommended

Recover Windows was unable to complete the format

Step 2: Select your media drive and then start scanning

Step 3: Save data on the corrupted media onto another place.

Recover data from usb/disk that Windows was unable to complete the format

4 Free ways to fix Windows failed to format external hard drive or usb flash drive

Solution 1: switch off the write protection of your disk/media

Switch off write protection on usb

Solution 2: fix Windows failed to format by using the following diskpart 'attributes disk clear readonly'

Remove write protection using cmd

Solution 3: Format Windows via using IM-Magic Resizer FREE edition:

IM-Magic Resizer Free Edition is 100% freeware that can help format your disk.

Format disk with freeware

Solution 4: Fix the format problem by deleting the volume and then create new partition. This can be done under Disk Management or with freeware Partition Resizer Free.

A. Using Disk Management to Delete Partition.

1, go to This PC and then right click to get 'Manage'

2, go to 'Disk Management' or Device Manage

3, Delete the usb flash drive or external hard drive that shows under Disk Management

4, Create a new partition and lable it with new drive letter and new file system for it

B. Partition Resizer Freeware to delete partition

1, open the freeware and right click the external hard drive or media and then delete partition

Delete Partition

2, confirm the delete

Confirm Delete Partition

3, create new partition to start it as a new one.

Solution 5: Repair bad blocks on disk or media with freeware

If all the previous methods does not work, repair the corrupted parts of your disk/usb that may get damaged for logical reasons. We would show you how to use freeware Partition Resizer Free Edition to do the trick.

1, get your disk/usb connected to PC and open partition resizer

2, right click the media that shows inside of partition resizer and select option 'Check Partition' to check errors and fix them.

Repair damaged disk/usb

Confirm the disk repair