However, they can also have format errors that make them “undeletable.” Further reading: How to format USB sticks and external drives in Windows Such situations no doubt are frustrating.

Windows doesn’t allow formatting USB drives over 32GB using its built-in tools like File Explorer. You will be required to use command-line utilities like Command Prompt and PowerShell to do that.

You can format a USB drive to FAT32 using the built-in Disk Management tool or File Explorer in Windows. Both of these methods are simple, GUI-based methods to format external drives.

Connect the external USB drive to your computer and launch the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. It's a good idea to disconnect all other external drives from the computer so you won't accidentally ...

If you buy an external drive—such as one of our recommended portable or desktop hard drives, portable solid-state drives, or USB 3.0 flash drives —you may need to reformat it to work with your ...

Many vendors format their external USB drives in the universally supported FAT32 or exFAT. Simply reformatting in NTFS can triple your speed when you write small files and folders.