Connected external drive or USB to your computer and it is not working? Wondering how to make the corrupted drive work? Now, Windows comes with DiskPart, an inbuilt tool, which can erase everything and format the drive. Usually, Disk Management tool can help you manage drives but if it doesn’t work— you can format the disk using DiskPart. a command tool which enables you to manage partitions, drives and volumes.
In this post, we will discuss how to clean & format using Diskpart to resolve to drive not working issue along with other common disk issues.
Also Read: Best Windows 10 Cleaner Software
How To Use DiskPart To Clean and Format A Drive?
DiskPart is one of the best ways to deal with corrupt or drive not working issue on Windows. Follow these steps to format disk using DiskPart:
Note: These instructions will delete everything on the selected drive and changes can’t be reversed. Therefore, you can access your drive, and then take a backup of the data that’s important.
- Go to Start and type Command Prompt in the search box. Choose Run as administrator.
- Now Command Prompt will launch with admin rights. Type the below command to get DiskPart
Diskpart
Press enter
Alternatively, you can go to Start and type Diskpart and press Enter, this will also launch DiskPart.
- Type below given command to list all drives connected to your computer
List disk
- Press Enter.
- To select the drive that you want to clean, type the below command:
Select Disk 1
Press Enter.
Use the disk number which you want to erase as if you don’t select the drive name correctly, you might end up deleting the wrong partition.
- To wipe or format your drive, follow these steps:
Clean
- Press Enter.
- Now to confirm the drive that you have selected to wipe out is correct, type this command:
List Disk
Press Enter.
Note: Don’t forget to look for the asterisk (*) sign beside the selected drive.
As you have formatted your drive, let’s proceed now to create a new partition.
Use the below-mentioned command to create a new partition on drive:
Create Partition Primary
Press Enter.
To choose a new primary partition, type the below-mentioned command:
Select Partition 1
Type active & press Enter
This will make the selected partition active.
Type : format FS=NTFS label=Data quick & press Enter.
You can replace Data for the name of the drive that appears while using File Explorer. This command will format the partition via the Microsoft NTFS file system and set a drive label.
Note: Using Quick flag is optional but if you don’t want formatting to take time, then including the flag is recommended.
If you want to assign a drive letter & want the drive to appear in File Explorer, type
assign letter=f
Press Enter.
Note: Make sure the drive letter assigned by you is not been used by an existing drive.
Type exit and press Enter to close DiskPart.
Additional Tip: If you don’t keep your system optimized and don’t want it to be a hassle in the future, then you must have an optimization tool on Windows. Advanced System Optimizer is one of the best tools to boost your system performance.
So, this is how you can clean and format disk using Diskpart on Windows 10 and make it accessible. How do you deal with a corrupted drive or partition? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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