t++: Format your PenDrive With Diskpart

Formatting your flash drive can be a very easy task. In Windows all you have to do is right click on the flash drive and select format. Not really that impressive if you are trying to show off your geeky skills to someone. That is unless you use the command prompt like a boss. This method is a geeky and fun way to format your flash drive with diskpart command utility. Here is how to format your flash drive with Diskpart command utility

What is Diskpart?
Diskpart is a command line utility that enhances the Disk Administrator graphical user interface. In other words, it provides Administrators with more functionality, like scripting etc. instead of just using the regular graphical user interface. If you would like to read more about Diskpart you can check out this Microsoft knowledge base article about it.

Format your PenDrive With Diskpart

Step-1: Insert a USB pendrive into a running computer.

Step-2: Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator.

Step-3: Type DISKPART

Step-4: type LIST DISK , and then click ENTER. The LIST DISK command displays all the disks on the computer. Note the drive number or drive letter of the USB flash drive.

Step-5: Next you want to use the “Select” command to pick your flash drive. For me I will use “SELECT DISK 1” since 1 is the disk number for my flash drive.

Step-6: Next you want to enter “CLEAN” with no quotes.

Step-7: Next type in “CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY” with no quotes.

Step-8: Next type in "SELECT PARTITION 1".

Step-9: Next type in “ACTIVE” with no quotes.

Step-10: Here comes the fun part formatting it. You can chose any file system that is supported by your flash drive. I am going to select NTFS, which is supported by my flash drive. You can select FAT32 or FAT16 if you need those type of formats.

Type in this command without quotes “format fs=ntfs. Just replace ntfs with either FAT32 or FAT16 to format the drive with these formats instead.