NatsuDragneel Jan 6, 2016 at 11:42 AM. If you need to re-size your partition the best bet is to create a disc image with Disk Utility and then format and re-image back onto your disc. The newly imaged disc will use the entire capacity of the drive and not leave free space. Much more reliable that re-sizing a partition. GParted can be used on x86 and x86-64 based computers running Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X by booting from media containing GParted Live. A minimum of 320 MB of RAM is needed to use all of the features of the GParted application. GParted is free software. You have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve.
Western Digital Hard Drive Utility Formatting Drive. To format the Western Digital Hard Disk Drive using the Disk Management application, follow the instructions given below. First, back up the data from the hard drive that you wish to format. Give a right-click on the Start icon on your system. Disk formatting is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solid-state drive, floppy disk or USB flash drive for initial use. In some cases, the formatting operation may also create one or more new file systems.The first part of the formatting process that performs basic medium preparation is often referred to as 'low-level formatting'. Enter to Search. My Profile Logout. CNET News Best Apps. HDD Low Level Format Tool. Format and re-certify a SATA, IDE or SCSI hard disk drive.
Last updated on 1/10/2020
- If you need a simpler format tool to format USB or external hard drive to FAT32 on a Windows computer so to make it work on Mac, you can apply a third-party format tool for help. EaseUS partition software is a popular disk management tool that is available for resolve all types of partition management jobs such as format disk partition, extend.
- Partition Assistant Standard. Free safe partition tool to manage your hard drive. Free partition manager for personal and home use. Resize/move, merge partitions with no loss to your data. Disk or partition cloning lets you upgrade your hard drive, and backup is a snap. Convert MBR to GPT disk to maximize disk space beyond 2TB.
These formatting tools work for all brands and types of usb flash, hard drive, sd memory card. You may use them to force format on your usb/disk/sd for free. The best free formatter we tested for usb flash, disk drive, memory card.
Format usb flash or memory card on MAC? Be free to visit: Top 3 free formatters for MAC; Flash drive corrupted? Try these usb repair utilities: 8 usb repair tools for Windows
Table of contents
- A). HP USB Format Tool Download - needs admin privilege
- B). IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free - can also repair bad blocks for disk/usb before formatting
- C). Rufus - format disk/usb/sd that won't format
Hard Disk Formatting Software to Format Hard Disk?
'Windows was not able to complete the format when I received drive not formatted error message and performed a formatting there. Really want to format hard disk smoothly and also restore its common use. Thanks!'
'I am searching for best free drive formatting software to wipe everything stored inside before selling this drive online. Do you have any suggestion? Hope the suggested formatting software would help delete data permanently and any erased file will never be restored again. Thanks'
Hello, friends, you are also looking for the related hard drive reformatting utility to fix hard drive problems or remove hard drive viruses, bad sectors and sensitive data, etc? OK! No worry! Here are several tested best hard drive formatting programs for you.
Note: Before any formatting, we would recommend you backup data from your media. If the device is no longer accessible, you may try this tool: how to recover data from not formatted drive/card
Free Disk Drive/Memory Card Data Recovery Tool (386)
Hdd Low Level Format Tool 4.40 Mac
Free Download Tool to Recover Data from Damaged Media, inaccessible drive, not formatted disk/usb/memory card.
Tested 5 Best Free Hard Drive/USB/SD Formatting Tool
Here are several common and useful free hard disk formatting utilities for you:
1). HP USB Disk Storage Format tool
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is really a free disk formatting tool which allows people to easily and quickly format a USB flash drive to FAT32, exFAT or NTFS file system. And it can work flawlessly even when Windows was unable to complete the format when your usb pen drive turned raw format.
MUST READ: * It needs you to run it under 'Administator'
With this software, if necessary, you can also make a bootable USB drive by choosing its 'Create a DOS startup disk' option.
Pros:
*It is completely free and easy to grasp and use.
*It works well in formatting USB drive into FAT32, FAT or NTFS.
*It is portable and could be installed on a flash drive to be used on different PCs.
*It allows people to 'Create a DOS startup disk' to help boot up a computer from USB flash drive.
*It supports common Windows operating systems.
Cons:
* It works well on USB flash drive and does not recognize internal hard drives and partitions.
* It needs you to run it under 'Administator'
Also read: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool Review and Error Fixing
2). IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free
As a disk formatting tool, Partition Resizer Free Edition also allows people to format the selected hard drive or partition into FAT32/ntfs for free. As a partition managing program, this software also help format, create, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage partitions effectively for you.
Free USB/Disk Formatter (1386)
Download IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free Edition to format disk/usb/memory card totally free of charge.
Format, repair bad blocks totally free of charge.
Must have: it has 'Check Partition' function to check and repair possible errors for your digital devices.
Pros:
*The home edition is free and easy.
*It helps format hard drive or partition into FAT32 as you wish.
*It also help format, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage computer internal hard drive partitions well.
*A tutorial video will also be automatically popped out and lead you to this software step by step.
*It supports the latest Windows 10/8/7 Vista and XP.
Cons:
*This home edition is free for personal use.
Note: this freeware also provides bootable iso version that you may format disk/usb under WinPE.
Read more details: Partition software bootable iso download
3). Rufus - format device that cannot be formatted
Rufus is an easy to use freeware that is able to format media which cannot be formatted in regular ways.
Rufus download url: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/download/v3.11/rufus-3.11.exe
Also read: how to format sd card that cannot be formatted, or format usb drive that won't format
4). HDD Low Level Format Tool
HDD Low Level Format Tool is also another completely free disk formatting utility and allows people to easily format internal and external hard disk. With a Low-level format function, it often helps users format a hard drive completely and leave no original drive data there as well as removing some basic hard drive problems.
Pros:
Seagate Low Level Format Tool
*It is free and user-friendly.
*It support not only external hard drives, and also reads internal hard drives.
*It also offers a low-level format option to help users completely format hard drive and also ease everything inside drive.
*It also supports external memory cards, like SD, MMC, memory stick, CF card and more.
Cons:
*Pay $3.30 to upgrade this free tool to get faster speed and free lifetime updates.
*It recognizes the internal hard drive as one, not separated partitions.
*The speed of this free version is capped at 180GB per hour which is 50MB/s.
5). USB Disk Storage Format Tool
As the second disk formatting tool tested and listed here, USB disk storage format tool is also 100% freeware and allows people to completely format any USB flash drive or memory card with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system formats.
Pros:
*It is free, fast and safe to format a flash drive or memory card.
*It supports all USB flash drives and memory card, like pen drive, thumb drive, CF, SD, Micro SD, TF, SDXC, SDHC memory card and more storage devices with different bands.
*It supports USB drive and memory card with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types.
*It helps formatting storage device and also removes all stored videos, music and files completely.
Cons:
*It also does not read any internal hard disk and partition.
*Upgrade software to pro version to get more features, like creating bootable USB disk, formatting USB disk not recognized by Windows, doing a low-level format or adjusting cluster size for USB disk for faster speed, etc.
*It supports FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types only.
6). Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter
Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter is also a free disk formatting program which also helps everyone format hard disk and partition into FAT32 for free. With an easy-to-use interface, this software is also able to help delete or initialize a drive or partition smoothly.
Pro:
*It is free and easy to grasp.
*It allows users to delete or initialize hard drive partitions with simple clicks.
*It also reads all computer internal hard drives as separated partitions.
*It also allows user to format drive or partition into FAT32
Cons:
*It is able to format only unallocated space into FAT32 file system type.
*It only allows people to format hard drive or partition into FAT32.
*It supports Windows XP/Vista /2000 /7 only.
Free usb/disk formatting without software
Here are also some free methods that are available for you to operate hard drive formatting or usb format without any software under Windows.
Tool #6: format by right click the disk drive, pen drive or sd card
Partition Tool Mac Free Full
Tool #7: Format under PC Disk Management
Tool #8: format with cmd, it works when Windows was unable to complete the format
Step 1: open cmd by typing 'cmd' or 'diskpart' in 'Search Programs and Files' under Windows start
Step 2: type the letters inside of the quote 'format F: /fs:fat32' and enter. F must be replaced by the drive you want to format.
If you want to know more solution about why and what to do when Windows was unable to complete the format, you may read this article: Windows failed to format
Or you may see the following video to get a quick fix when it is unable to format your drive/card.
Note: when your flash drive or hard disk is damaged, be free to try these 8 free usb drive repair software for free repairing.
Remove Sensitive Data on Hard Disk/USB Flash by freeware Partition Resizer Free
Some users want to download disk formatting programs with the purpose of removing personal information on their storage media that they do not want to share any byte of the confidential data with another one.
In case of removing sensitive data with the usb format tools, we would recommend this freeware - Partition Resizer Free to you since it is built with a function - 'Wipe Partition' that could wipe the whole disk or usb by writing 0 or 1 into the disk, which makes the old data to be completely overwritten and can not be restored by any data recovery programs.
Step 1: Download and install Partition Resizer Free and get the usb/card to your PC if you want to remove an external device.
Step 2: Launch Partition Resizer Free and then right click the media you want to remove its privacy.
Step 3: Choose a wiping method. Time consumption depends on how much data on your media. Usually 120GB data would take about 10 minutes.
Conclusion:
No matter why you have to format a hard drive or memory card, there are always five common ways for you to choose, like formatting it in My Computer, performing a formatting process in Disk Management, formatting a hard drive with common line, doing a formatting process with drive partition managing software or disk formatting software. And No matter which way you choose at last, hope you can extract and save important data backups well in advance to avoid any unexpected data loss troubles.
Other articles that you may want to read
Hot Articles
- Best Low Level Format Tool
- How to Low Level Format Hard Drive with HDD Low Level Format Tool
- How to Partition and High Level Format Hard Drive with a Partition Manager
- Low Level Format (LLF) FAQs
Best Low Level Format Tool
Low level format of the hard disk is the most thorough way to initialize the hard disk. After the low level format of hard disk, the original saved data will be lost, so it is generally undesirable to perform low-level formatting on the hard disk. But when the hard disk has a certain type of bad sectors, in order to use the hard disk normally, you have to format the hard disk at a low level.
What's the best low level format tool that facilitates a hard drive formatting? HDD Low Level Format Tool from HDDGURU receives positive feedbacks from personal/home users as well as commercial/professional users.
HDD Low Level Format Tool is an outstanding disk formatter for low level hard disk drive formatting.
- Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, Server 2003, 2008, and 2008R2
- Low level format a SATA, IDE, SAS, SCSI, USB, Firewire, and SSD hard disk drive
- Support most popular hard drive brands, like Seagate, Samsung, Western Digital, Toshiba, Maxtor, etc.
- Work with any USB and firmware external drive enclosures as well as SD, MMC, MemoryStick and CompactFlash media.
- Free for personal/home use with speed limitation (the speed limit is 180 GB per hour, or 50 MB/s)
How to Low Level Format Hard Drive with HDD Low Level Format Tool
By using the HDD Low Level Format Tool, the hard drive low level formatting shall become easier and faster. Even a computer novice could make full use of it. Simply follow the guide to low level format a USB drive, pen drive, SD card, external hard drive, and more.
- Warning
- Low level format a USB drive or hard disk drive will erase the whole disk surface. After that, you can’t recover data from the hard drive any more even using professional data recovery software.
Step 1. Google 'HDD Low-Level Format', pick up an official site or CNET download site to download and install it on PC.
Step 2. Plug your HDD or USB drive into the computer and launch the low-level format tool.
Step 3. Select the desired drive and click Continue. Confirm the option by clicking Yes.
Step 4. Select 'Low-Level Format' in Tab to start the low-level formatting process.
Partition and High Level Format a Hard Drive After Low Level Format
The purpose of complete low-level formatting of a hard drive is to zero-filling it so that erased data can never be restored. So, behave cautiously while choosing this type of formatting process.
It doesn't finish yet after low level format your hard drive if you want to put it in normal use. The hard disk must undergo three processing steps: low level format, partition, and high level format (hereinafter referred to as formatting) before the computer can use them to store data.
Hence, take more steps after using HDD low level format tool. Use EaseUS Partition Master to help you partition and format partitions on the low level formatted hard drive simply.
Partition and Format Hard Drive with a Partition Manager
In the steps of partitioning and formatting the hard disk, it is necessary to create partitions and logical disks to format the hard disk. You can create either FAT or NTFS partition according to the physical hard disk capacity.
And don't panic if the partition file is formatted incorrectly, You can still use EaseUS partition management software to convert FAT32 to NTFS on Windows 10, 8, 7.
Partition Hard Drive/Create a Partition
Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the hard drive partition you intend to format and choose 'Format'.
Step 2: In the new window, set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and Cluster size for the partition to be formatted, then click 'OK'.
Step 3: Then you will see a warning window, click 'OK' in it to continue.
Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting the partition on your hard drive.
Move/Resize Partition
As a professional disk management software, EaseUS partition management tool can help you easily move or resize partition so that your hard disk can play the maximum efficiency.
Step 1: Locate the drive/partition
Partition Magic Mac
Which drive/partition do you want to adjust its size? Right-click on it and choose 'Resize/Move'.
Step 2: Resize the partition
You can either shrink the selected partition or extend it.
To shrink the partition, simply use your mouse to drag one of its ends into unallocated space. Expand the 'Advanced Settings' list, where you can see the exact disk space for each partition. Once done, click 'OK'.
Fig. 1 Unallocated space before the drive.
Fig. 2 Unallocated space after the drive.
To extend the partition, make sure that there is unallocated space aside (if there isn't, follow the above steps to create some). In the same way, drag your mouse towards the unallocated space. Click 'OK'.
Fig. 3 Add unallocated space into the partition
Hdd Low Level Format Download
Step 3: Apply changes
At this step, you will see the new disk partition information & diagram.
To save changes, click the 'Execute Operation' button and then 'Apply'.
Hdd Low Level Format Windows
Other practical key features of EaseUS Partition Master are:
- Clone whole disk or a certain partition without any data loss
- Merge partition to solve the low disk space issue
- Wipe out your disk completely to save all confidential and sensitive data
- Convert partition between logical and primary partition,
- Convert MBR disk to GPT or GPT disk to MBR
Knowledge About Low Level Format (LLF)
Low-level formatting is recognized as one of the three disk formatting processes, the others are partitioning and high-level formatting.
By wiki's explanation, low-level formatting marks the surfaces of the disks with markers indicating the start of a recording block and other information like block CRC to be used later, in normal operations, by the disk controller to read or write data. This is intended to be the permanent foundation of the disk and is often completed at the factory.
Pros
Low-level formatting is extremely helpful and significant when hard disk drive or some removable storage devices developed bad tracks, such as track 0 bad, or Windows was unable to complete the format due to write protection. Besides, severe computer virus infection.
Cons
Low-level formatting does damage to the hard drive and accelerates its death. What's more, it's incredibly time-consuming. It is estimated that low-level format a hard drive of 320GB takes about 20 hours or even longer.
If you have to do low level disk formatting, there are three typical approaches, including DOS command, inbuilt disk utility of disc or USB drive, and third-party low-level format tool (demonstrated in this article).
Low Level Format Tool Free
To Sum Up
After low level format, partition, and high level format, your hard drive can be perfectly put in use even after experiencing a dead moment. For any problem during the process, you can contact our technical support for help via live chat or email support: support@easeus.com.
Low Level Format FAQs
Here are a few questions related to low level format on Windows 10. If you also have any of these problems, you can troubleshoot here.
1. What is low level formatting?
Low level format is to reset the contents of the disk, restore the factory state, divide the cylinder and the track, and divide the track into several sectors. Each sector is divided into the identification part ID, the interval GAP, and the data District DATA, etc. Low level formatting is a job before high-level formatting. Low level format can only target one hard disk and cannot support a single partition. Each hard drive has been low level formatted by the hard drive manufacturer when it leaves the factory, so users usually do not need to perform low level formatting operations.
2. Does low level format erase all data?
Best Low Level Format Tool
Best cleaner 2018. Low level format means clearing all sectors, including partition tables, boot sectors, etc. It is a very long, but quite effective way to delete private data, boot sector viruses, C-Dilla data, and a few more. Low level formatting is a lossy operation, which has a certain negative impact on the life of the hard disk.
3. How do I format a low level hard drive?
You can use HDD low level format tool to low level format a hard drive:
Hdd Low Level Format Key
Step 1. Download and run HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool on your computer.
Step 2. Plug your HDD or USB drive into the computer and launch the low-level format tool.
Step 3. Select the desired drive and click 'Continue'. Confirm the option by clicking Yes.
Step 4. Select 'Low-Level Format' in the tab to start the low-level formatting process.
4. What is the difference between low level format and standard format?
Formatting is divided into high level formatting and low level formatting. High level format simply clears data on the hard disk, generates boot information, initializes the FAT table, and marks logical bad sectors. The low level format divides the hard disk into cylinders and tracks and then divides the tracks into several sectors, and each sector is divided into an identification part ID, a partition area, a GAP, and a data area DATA. Low level format is a job before high level format.
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