When we talk about formatting a USB or hard drive. It means formatting a drive and preparing its storage space for data storage. With the formatting, the logical structure of the USB memory is prepared to use the file format that we need depending on our operating system. Next, we are going to show how to format a USB or Pendrive in Windows 10.
The truth is that when we buy a USB memory. It comes formatted so that we only have to connect it to our PC. And we can start saving what we want on it. However, on certain occasions, we may be forced to have to change the file system used. We may even want to erase everything there is and give it a format to use it again.
Sometimes, it also happens that some manufacturers of USB storage devices include some small applications for file and storage management or even antivirus. They are still unnecessary applications, we already have them natively in our operating system and they occupy our very valuable space.
Steps to follow to format a USB
Although there are many applications developed to format a USB, Pendrive, or hard drive, the truth is that Windows 10 has a tool integrated into the system that allows us to format any USB easily and quickly.
To do this, the first thing we have to do is open a Windows 10 file explorer window, find the drive that corresponds to my USB, which we will have to have connected to the PC previously, and click with the right mouse button on her. Next, we click on the Format option in the contextual menu and this will open a new window with the options to configure.
There we will have the possibility to choose the file system that we want to use in memory, the name that we want to give to the unit, if we want to perform a quick erasure or format or if we prefer to perform a more complete and deep erasure. Once we have all this configured to our liking, we only have to press the Start button and wait for the formatting to be carried out. Keep in mind that formatting a USB implies that everything stored on it is erased, therefore, if there is something that we do not want to lose, we must make a copy before formatting it.
When to use the quick format
When we activate the fast format box, the process usually takes only a few seconds, because it does not make a real deletion of the information, in fact, the partition table or the file system is not deleted. This means that it is relatively easy to recover the information that we had stored on that Pendrive prior to formatting. It is not necessary to have programming knowledge, be a hacker, or the like, there are file recovery tools that only need to scan the device to recover what we “presumably” had formatted.
If we are going to continue using it ourselves. If the information that we are going to save is not important, we do not have to worry about using the quick method. But if that USB device is going to change hands. It is better that we do not activate the Quick Format box, although the process is much slower.
