At present, although it is true that little by little the use of pendrives, data pencils or USB memories and, in general, of the various external physical media is plummeting due mainly to the advantages of working in the cloud, the truth is that they are still useful for many people, and are still being used.
However, it is possible that at some point you have wanted restore your pendrive to factory data, that is, format it from scratch, which would remove all the files from it and you could give a new life to your device. This is something that Windows allows you to easily achieve natively if you wish, for which you will only need to follow a few simple steps.
So you can format a pendrive in Windows without installing anything
As we mentioned, in this case, although it is true that there are a multitude of third-party tools that allow us to carry out this and other similar tasks, the truth is that here we are going to be based on the traditional Windows method, thanks to which you can format your pendrive very quickly and easily.
To do this, you must first connect your pendrive to the corresponding port (in many cases the USB input) of your computer and, once it detects it, access the file explorer, specifically the team section. Next, you will have to locate the external drive you want to act on, in this case your pendrive, and right-click about it. Afterwards, a secondary menu will appear with various options, among which you must select "Format ...".
When you do this, An information box will appear with various options to choose. Below we detail each one and help you choose easily:
- Capacity: in most cases, you will see a single option corresponding to the full capacity of the pendrive without data. It is important that you select the same one since otherwise the partition of the unit will not be registered correctly, leaving unusable space.
- File System: here you will have several options, among which you can choose the one that suits you best in your case. If you are clear, choose the one you want, and if you do not know the options, we recommend that you choose one of the following:
- NTFS: if you are only going to use your pendrive with computers that have a modern version of Windows installed, since it will provide you with better performance and more options as well as features that are not available in other formats.
- FAT32: in the event that you are also going to use your pendrive with other computers other than Windows (for example a Mac or an Android device), since in this way the files can be accessed from another operating system as well.
- Allocation unit size: The simplest thing is that you select the option called "Default allocation size", because in this way Windows will directly take care of choosing the right one for your pendrive. In the same way, if you are clear about it, you can select it manually.
- Volume label: you can enter a specific text, leave it empty or whatever you prefer. Define the name with which once formatted your pendrive will appear on the computers you decide to connect it to, because it will be your own choice.
- Quick format: you must mark the option to speed up the times, except in specific cases such as the possibility that the pendrive contains a security threat or similar, in which it would be recommended not to mark it so that the formatting is more exhaustive.
Once this is done, already You just have to select the option "Start". Next, a small alert will appear to remind you that all the data on your pendrive will be deleted when formatting it, for which you just have to accept the warning and the formatting will begin. In a matter of seconds, a new alert should appear indicating that the disk has been formatted, and as soon as it happens already you can use it again normally.