Clean Up USB Flash, SSD, Hard Drives

When a drive has been used in Operation System (OS) different from Windows, for example, Linux, it can get unusable in Windows. Disk Management Windows GUI tool can't handle those disks but DiskPart Windows tool can help clean up and re-partition a drive. The tool is similar to fdisk Linux one with comprehensive functionality.

1. Run the tool typing diskpart from Windows Command Prompt or Windows Start

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MAINCOMPUTER

DISKPART>

2. Identify an index of a drive

DISKPART> LIST DISK

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          931 GB  1024 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online          953 GB  1024 KB        *
  Disk 2    Online         1863 GB  1863 GB

3. Select a drive

Based on size, the drive index is 2.

DISKPART> SELECT DISK 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

4. Clean up drive

Remove all partitions from the drive.

DISKPART> CLEAN

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

if additionally, the drive content has to be removed securely, apply ALL option. It will take time as it will write to every sector of the disk.

DISKPART> CLEAN ALL

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

5. Create a new primary partition

DISKPART> CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

6. Format the drive

A list of file systems is FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT. quick option allows to complete it very fast

DISKPART> FORMAT fs=exFAT quick

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

7. Assign a letter to access the drive in Windows

DISKPART> ASSIGN

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

8. Close DiskPart tool

DISKPART> EXIT