If Windows won't format your USB drive to the FAT32 file system, remove the write protection or use CMD, PowerShell, or free software to do the same.

The operating system still provides a built-in way to quickly restructure a USB drive to FAT32, if required, and the steps are identical for both Windows 10 and 11. A fresh format is also a handy ...

But if you want to browse the internet, stream, or use most productivity software or office suites, you’ll find a capable ...

You can format an external drive quickly and easily in Windows, without the need of any third-party tools. But before you format your USB drive, you need to consider which file system to use.

In my experience NTFS Is more robust and I format all USB drives for Windows in NTFS. Linux can read and write NTFS (you may need to install ntfs-3g for writing).

If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.