How to format an USB drive having multiple partitions under Windows 11?
Jan 15
I have an USB stick totalling 8GB. It has three "partitions":
- 41 MB Unallocated
- D: 2MB Fat
- the rest is unallocated
I want to completly format the USB drive. Yet when I do right click on D:\ and select format it will only format the 2.25MB partition:
I cannot delete the D:\ partition within Disk Management tool ("Create and format hard disk partitions"). When I right click it, all options are grayed out.
I tried ejecting the disk, but then it also disappears from the disk management tool.
(I assumed unmounting the D:\ drive would let me delete the partitions, yet as it appears: ejecting is not unmounting.)
How to format the entire USB stick using the Windows Disk Management tool?
1 answer
Accepted answer · original discussion
Jan 31
It turns out that Windows protects EFI partition from being deleted. One is able to delete the partion via
diskpart(Win + R, enter the command, a terminal windows with diskpart running will pop up)list disk, will print a list of all disks, e.g.:
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 3726 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 931 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 2 Online 238 GB 450 MB
Disk 3 Online 476 GB 0 B *
Disk 5 Online 57 GB 57 GB
- Select your relevant disk. In my case, it's Disk 5:
sel disk 5. (Double-check your disk number! You can rundetail diskafter selecting the disk to see more detail about the disk, such as its name, if you're unsure that you've selected the right disk.) list partition
DISKPART> list partition
Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 System 3968 KB 1988 MB
DISKPART> sel partition 1
And finally, deleted the partion via:
DISKPART> delete partition override
DiskPart successfully deleted the selected partition.
From the source, they also set an ID, yet that part both did not work nor was it necessary for me.
Now the entire USB stick was deleted:
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Jan 15