How to Format a Flash Drive

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Noah and today we are going to learn how to format a flash drive. Often with these little devices you'll find that you'll sometimes encounter errors when you accidentally unplugged them without first checking the safely remove hardware tab in Windows. Or simply you might have lots of old files on there which you are sure you don't want to keep. So it's often useful just to format the device which would basically make it the same way it was the day you took it out of the box when you first purchased it. So basically the one thing you want to keep in mind however when you decide to format your flash drive is that you will lose all the data which is on it. So make sure that what ever you do you back up all the files that you want to save first. Simply by making a copy on your hard drive. Just a reminder that you will lose all the data that is on your flash drive when you format it. So make sure you copy anything you want to save first. Start your computer and plug in the flash drive in USB port. If you are prompted to take an action simply close the pop up window. Open the start menu and go to computer, and then locate your flash drive. Once you've located it, simply right click, and then select format. Once a pop up window opens, make sure all the device defaults are set and then you can start to format. If you are in a rush, make sure you select the quick format option first and then click the start button. Click ok to continue. Once the format is complete press ok once more. Congratulations you have successfully formatted your drive. Just close all the windows and don't forget before removing your drive you should click on the safely remove hardware tab in the right hand corner. Simply select your device and click stop then click ok. And click ok once more. It's now safe to remove your flash drive."