Why can Windows 7 not format my removable hard disk?

tushki July 26, 2011

I have Windows 7 Home Basic (64-bit) with Intel Core2 Duo. It was doing fine around 2 months back or so. But suddenly, it stopped copying or deleting any data from any USB removable disk. Whenever I try to format any USB Flash drive, it gives me an error message, “Windows was not able to complete the format”.

  1. Anonymous
    July 27, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    Click on windows start orbtype cmd and do right click and select run as administratortype diskparttype list diskselect the disk which is your pendrive. For example if your pendrive is no 2 then type select disk 2type cleantype create partition primarytype format fs=fat32 quicktype exit
    Now see if it finally formatted your USB Flash Drive

  2. Jeffery Fabish
    July 27, 2011 at 1:49 am

    Are you trying to format the file system as FAT32 or NTFS? 

    Try formatting it in Disk Management? Start -> Search: diskmgmt.msc  

    If formatting as FAT32 doesn't work, try NTFS. If that succeeds, proceed to then format it as FAT32 (after NTFS file system was written). 

    • Santoshmsk
      April 1, 2012 at 8:19 am

      Hey Jeff...

      Thanks a ton. Following your instructions worked for me.