How to Fix It When Windows Was Unable to Complete the Format If that doesn’t help, follow the guide below. Sometimes this helps clear the compatibility or buffer issues. Just connect your USB drive to the PC, then let a recovery program scan your USB drive to seek any recoverable items.Īlso, if you happen to have access to another computer, try inserting the USB drive to that PC and then see if the drive can be accessed or formatted successfully. If you haven’t done so and the files stored inside are important to you, try using a USB data recovery software to see if it helps. Make sure that you’ve already backed up the data stored on your flash drive. We’d like to use an analogy a reader shared with us earlier.Ī flash drive is essentially like a book, the data is the words in the book, the format is the paper that the words are printed on – different book publishers use different kinds of paper. It’s possible that you (or the person who uses it) might have reformatted it into NTFS or another file system. For example, normally a new flash drive is initiated with FAT-32. There might also be compatibility issues between your flash drive and the PC.Īnother common reason is file system error. For example, the flash drive is corrupted due to improper ejection or an unexpected PC shutdown. Possible causes for those formatting errors also vary. Windows refuses to format your USB key or access files.The operation did not complete because the media is write protected.The USB disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now?.

Windows was unable to complete the format.

Typical Errors When Windows Can’t Format USBĭepending on the operating systems (Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP) you are using, the error messages may vary from case to case.

How to Format USB When Windows Says Disk is Write Protected.

How to Fix It When Windows Was Unable to Complete the Format.

Typical Errors When Windows Can’t Format USB.

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