Updated on November 9th, 2020
Format Corrupted Memory Card With Command Prompt. Well, if you don’t want to rely upon any third-party software to format your corrupted SD card, then you need to use the Windows 10 Command Prompt. Follow some of the simple steps given below to format the corrupted memory card with the command prompt.
This page shows how to format/reformat an SD card, USB flash drive, pen stick, etc. on Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7. You can force format SD card in Windows and Command Prompt to repair SD card not formatting issue as well as format SD card for Android devices.
Fix SD Card Not Formatting Using CMD. The full name of chkdsk is check disk. This tool creates. Simply insert the SD card to a memory card and connect it with your computer. After the memory card is detected by your computer, simply follow this guide: Step 1: Open 'My Computer' on your PC and find the memory card driver. Step 2: Right-click on the memory card driver name and select 'Format'. Step 3: Keep the settings as it is, and check.
Formatting of memory card is common operation to users all over the world, and such action is also suggested by many tech experts. SD card is one the most popular memory card and it is mainly used in digital devices such as digital camera and cellphones. Some electronic product manufacturers recommend formatting SD card to proper file system format before put it to device.
Factors you need to format SD card
- Change file system format. Different devices may require different file system formats, such as sometimes you need exFAT file system on digital camera and ext4 file system on a Raspberry Pi. Once formatting is done, a new file system and directories are created.
- Enhance overall performance. Formatting wipes data as well as fragments, and thus speed and functioning can be improved to some extent.
- Repair corrupt SD card. If the SD card is unreadable due to file system errors, such as it turns to RAW or write-protected and cannot be accessed. You can format the memory card directly if files in the card have been recovered.
- Restore SD card to full capacity. SD card formatting wipes all data on the partition including hidden data, after which you can make use of all space again.
- You want to erase an SD card. You can completely clear everything on SD card by full formatting of the card, which protects personal data again SD card recovery.
- Clean up unknown virus and malware. It is a good choice to format memory card which contain virus.
What to do before formatting memory card
It’s easy to format SD card, hard drive partition, removable disk, virtual disk, SSD, etc. and there are multiple methods to complete the task. The rest part of this article shows several most common solutions to do the formatting. You should pay attention to following points before formatting SD card.
- Get a backup. You have to make sure a full backup have been created for files on the SD card and the backup file is properly stored on a secure location.
- Carry out SD card data recovery in advance. In some cases, SD card cannot be accessed and prompts to format before you can use it. You should recover files on the SD card before formatting it, as formatting causes data loss and affects data recovery result.
- Connect the SD card well to computer. You can insert the SD card to a card read or adaptor so that it can be connected and recognized by computer. If it cannot be detected by computer, the formatting cannot be carried out.
It’s easy to format SD under Windows which is able to format storage device to NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT. If you want to format SD card to Linux file system such as ext4, you can use PartitionGuru to complete the task.
Step 1: Open My Computer by double-clicking Computer (or This PC in Windows 10). Then you can see SD card is listed under Devices with removable storage. If you cannot see the SD card, then try reconnecting the memory card.
Format Sd Card Windows 10
Step 2: Right-click on the SD card and select Format from context menu to open formatting options.
Step 3: Choose File System format, formatting method, allocate unit, etc. and click Start button.
Usually, the default file system format is FAT32 in Windows and newer systems, but you can select other type bases on your needs. For example, if you want to store files whose single size is larger than 4GB, you should choose exFAT or NTFS here. Besides, Quick Format option is selected by default, which formats disk quickly; if you want to perform a full format, then unselect this option.
Step 4: Click “OK” button when Windows prompts formatting will erases all data on the disk. Click OK to continue.
Step 5: Click “OK” and close the window when system prompts “Format Complete”.
In Windows Disk Management console, you can format partition, change partition size, create new partition or delete partition. Disk Management provide basic feature to help users manage partitions and it is provided in most versions of Windows such as Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP.
If you cannot see the SD card in Windows Explorer, for example, partition gets damaged, drive letter is missing, or partition loss, you can format the SD card in Disk Management. If the SD card cannot be detected by Disk Management, you should check if the SD card is well connected to computer. Let’s see how to format memory card in this way:
Step 1: Open Disk Management by right-clicking Start menu and selecting Disk Management. If your computer is running Windows 7, you can open Disk Management in this way: right-click Computer icon and select Manage; then click Disk Management.
Step 2: You can see all your disks are listed in Disk Management there. Right-click the partition on SD card and select “Format” from context menu.
Step 3: Click Yes when Windows asks confirmation and prompts formatting will delete all data on the device.
Step 4: Set Volume label, File system, Allocation unit size and formatting type, and click OK button. If you are confused by these options, you can follow suggested selections.
Step 5: Again system prompts the formatting erases data and prompts back up data. Click OK to complete the formatting.
Diskpart is a command-line utility which can be used to manage disk partitions in Windows and Servers. Users can type commands to create, delete or format partitions, which might be a little bit complicated to average users. If you are new to this tool, you can use other methods given in this article to format or reformat SD card.
In this section, we’ll show you how to force format / reformat SD card using Diskpart commands. This method can also be used to format SD card when it reports errors like “The disk is write-protected” or “Windows was unable to complete the format”.
Step 1: Click Windows Start button and type diskpart in searching box. Right-click on diskpart.exe and choose Run as administrator.
Step 2: In the diskpart command window, type following command one by one and press Enter key after each command:
- List disk (this command shows all disks connected to current computer)
- Select disk # (substitute # with the disk number representing the SD card )
- Clean (delete all data on the selected SD card. You may need to remove and reconnect the SD card after this step)
- Create partition primary (it creates a new partition on the SD card)
- Format quick (carries out a quick format)
Step 3: When formatting completes, close the command window.
Apart from formatting solutions presented in previous part, we can format SD card, USB drive, hard drive or other media using free format software. Here we recommend Eassos PartitionGuru to complete the task, as it supports all kinds of storage devices as well as various file system formats. Besides, you can use this tool to clear an SD card, remove partition, resize partition, partition memory card, format a flash drive, check & repair bad sectors, recover deleted files, clone SD card, etc. In the rest part, we’ll explain how to format SD card for Raspberry Pi device and how to fix SD card not formatting issue.
- Supported device: Hard drive, external hard disk, SSD, USB flash drive, SD card, pen stick, virtual disk, RAID, etc.
- Supported file system: NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, FAT12, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, etc.
- Supported operating system: Windows 10 / 8.1 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP (all editions, both 32 & 64 bit); Windows Server 2016 / 2012 / 2011 Small Business Edition / 2008 / 2008R2 / 2003
Step 1: Install and launch PartitionGuru from Windows computer and connect the SD card to this computer.
Step 2: Select the SD card you want to set up for Raspberry Pi in PartitionGuru and click “Format” button from toolbar to view formatting options.
Step 3: Select File System format and click Format button.
Since Raspberry Pi does not read exFAT, you cannot choose exFAT file system here. But you can choose FAT32 or Linux file system (ext2, ext3 or ext4).
Step 4: Click Yes when PartitionGuru asks confirmation and prompts formatting erases data. Wait for a second and formatting completes.
SD card not formatting is a common issue that Windows is able to recognize the SD but cannot access it. When you try to access the SD card in Windows Explorer, you cannot open it and get error message such as “The disk in drive G is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?” “You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?” or “This type of file system is RAW. Chkdsk is not available for RAW drive”. This issue usually occurs because the device is damaged or file system on SD card’s partition is corrupt.
When SD card not formatting issue happens, you should first retrieve data from it if it contains important files which do not have a backup. Then you can format the SD card to get the error fixed. Eassos PartitionGuru is a great SD card recovery tool that can help you retrieve data from inaccessible or corrupt SD card. If you want to repair not formatting SD card without losing data, please try this safer way. Here are the detailed solutions:
Step 1: Connect the SD card which prompts formatting error to your computer. Then install and launch Eassos PartitionGuru from your computer.
Step 2: Select the SD card where you want to retrieve lost data and click “File Recovery” button from toolbar.
Step 3: Select Complete Recovery from the recovery mode and click “Start” to search for lost data. PartitionGuru starts a full and quick scan on selected device and keeps displaying lost files during scanning.
Step 4: After the scanning completes, choose files you want to recover and right-click them to select “Copy to” from context menu. Then you should save all recovered files on a different drive in case of data overwrite.
Step 5: Open target folder to view and check recovered files. File all your files have been recovered successfully, you can format the SD card to fix the error.
Formatting the SD card erases everything stored in it and creates storage space to save new files. Usually, before formatting the memory card, backup of the files is taken to avoid any data loss. But, sometimes, you might forget to back up our files and accidentally format the SD card with your data present in it. In some cases, the memory card can also get corrupted and you may be prompted with an error message 'Memory card is not formatted, do you want to format it now?'.
In such situations, the SD card becomes inaccessible and you cannot back up the files. This error will be prompted even on camera cards if there's any corruption. This leads to forcefully formatting your camera SD card too. Luckily, you can recover files by performing a photo recovery from a formatted SD card with the help of a professional data recovery software utility. Keep reading to know more in detail.
Before getting to know how you can recover a formatted SD card, let’s get to know what happens when you format the SD card.
Format Sd Card Software Free
Can We Recover Data from Formatted SD Card?
Majority of the people believe that once an SD card is formatted, all its data gets completely wiped off and cannot be recovered. This is not true! When we format the SD card, the memory occupied by the files will be marked as ready to be overwritten. But, the data resides in the SD card until any new data has not been overwritten. Such files can be recovered with the aid of a professional tool like Remo Recover software. Remo Recover is the most proficient tool that helps in recovering photos, files, and 300+ file types from your formatted SD card.
Note: If you want to recover photos after formatting SD card, immediately stop using it in order to avoid overwriting of the files. If the formatted files are overwritten with the new files, then it's highly difficult to recover files from the formatted SD card. Hence, no new files should be stored on the formatted SD card.
How to Recover Formatted SD Card with Remo Recover?
Remo Photo Recovery Software is so easy to use. All you have to do is to select the drive and the file types, the software scans the drive and recover photos from a damaged SD Card .
Step 1: Download, install and run Remo Photo recovery tool.
Step 2: Attach SD card to the computer on which you have installed recovery tool.
Step 3: Select Recover Partitions followed by drive selection according to the configuration of your computer
Step 4: After choosing the drive that represents SD card, click on Scan button
Step 5: Once the scan is complete, the software will display the found data in Data Type View and File Type View.
Step 6: Select the files you want to recover and select the location to save the recovered data.
More about Remo Recover..!
Remo SD Card Recovery Software has a powerful built-in algorithm which deep scans the card to retrieve all it's data. It also has Find Option, where you can search for a particular media file on the basis of creation data, size, extension and file name.
You can even recover the photos after formatting the drive. Robust scan algorithms supports all media formats like JPG, JPEG, GIF etc.
This tool also recovers RAW photo formats like CR2, CRW, RAF, KDC etc. or video or music files AVI, MP3 and MP4 respectively, the software helps you in recovering all the media files. It supports all popular memory card brands including Kingston, SanDisk, Lexar, Transcend, Sony etc. Remo Recover is compatible with all types of memory cards like SD, xD, CF, MMC, SDXC, SDHC, micro SD, etc. The software comes out in Mac and Windows editions separately that is compatible with macOS High Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, mavericks, and earlier versions, and all Windows OS including Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2003 & 2008, Windows 2000, etc.
Not just that, it does data recovery from USB drive, and image recovery from FAT16, FAT32, ExFAT, NTFS, NTFS5 partitions/drives as well.
Video Tutorial on Formatted SD Card Data Recovery