NOTE: replace FAT32 with NTFS if you would prefer to use the NTFS. If you want to reformat the drive (assign a partition type and drive letter) you can do this using diskpart by entering the following commands. OPTIONAL STEPS: Format drive using diskpart When finished you will have an empty USB drive ready to reformat.

The wiping process will now start and may take several minutes to complete – depending on the size of the drive.

The screen will display “Disk # is now the selected disk”.

Enter in the following command, making sure to replace # with the number of your drive from above.

In this case it is Disk 3 but it may be different for your computer.

This will list all drives connected to the computer, each represented by a number (1, 2, 3 etc) – determine which is the USB drive by the amount of space.

The diskpart program will load, once it’s ready you will see “DISKPART>” at the command prompt.

Enter the following command to start diskpart.

It can also be used to erase a USB drive by removing all existing partitions and writing a series of o’s. METHOD 2: Using the diskpart command line toolĭiskpart is a built-in command line tool in the Windows operating system that is normally used to manage drives, partitions and mappings (partitions to letters).

Enter the following command making sure to replace X with the drive letter you want to erase.

Click on the Windows button at the bottom left of the screen, type “cmd’ and when it appears in the list click on “Command Prompt”.

The free space is overwritten three times: Note – this is FREE SPACE only – if you want to erase the entire drive you must first format the drive so that it ALL free space.

It can be used to securely erase the FREE SPACE on a USB drive.

For example, this USB drive is F: METHOD 1: Using the cipher command line toolĬipher is a built-in command line tool in the Windows operating system that can be used to encrypt or decrypt data on drives. Make sure you choose the correct drive and backup any files on the drive you may need to keep. CAUTION: The steps below will completely wipe the data from the USB drive you select.

How to clear usb drive