10 Best Programs to Format Hard Drive

Last update: 04/10/2024

Programs to format hard driveAlthough people who use computers with Windows y Mac They have default programs for forma tear hard drives, many of them are still looking for the best third-party developed formatting software to enjoy more flexibility and control over the process.

Frankly speaking, the formatting procedure is very simple, sometimes compatibility issues appear that are impossible to handle if you use a standard program.

To avoid possible difficulties, you should get a specific instrument. To help you in this, here we will show you the best programs to format hard drive.

These free formatters work for all brands and types of flash USB, hard drive, sd memory card. You can use them to force format usb/disk/sd for free and easily. It is important that before formatting, you backup your media data.

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1. HP USB

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is really the best hard drive formatting software as it allows people to easily and quickly format a USB flash drive.

On the other hand, it can work smoothly even when Windows has failed to complete the formatting because your USB flash drive has become an unformatted device. With this software, if necessary, you can also create a USB flash drive from your computer. Boot choosing your option «Create a DOS boot disk«.

Advantages

It is completely free and easy to understand and use.

  • It works fine when formatting the USB drive in FAT32, FAT or NTFS.
  • It is portable and can be installed on a flash drive for use on different PCs.
  • Allows people to "Create a DOS startup disk» to help boot a computer from a USB flash drive.
  • It is compatible with OS common Windows.

Disadvantages

  • It does not recognize partitions or internal hard drives.
  • It requires you to run it in “Administator”.

Download here.

2. IM-Magic Partition Resizer

Just like disk formatting toolPartition Resizer Free Edition also enables people to format hard drive or selected partition to FAT32/ntfs for free. As a partition manager program, this software also helps to format, create, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage partitions effectively for you.

Advantages

  • The home edition is free and easy.
  • Helps to format hard drive or partition to FAT32 as you want.
  • It also helps to format, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage partitions on computer internal hard drive well.
  • A video tutorial will also appear automatically and take you through this software step by step.
  • It supports the latest Windows 10/8/7 Vista and XP.

Disadvantages

  • This home edition is free for personal use.

Nota: This free software also provides a bootable iso version which can format disk/usb in WinPE.

Download here.

3. HDD Low Level Format Tool

HDD Low Level Format Tool also deserves a good place on our list of hard drive formatting software. It is completely free and allows people to easily format internal and external hard drives.

With a low-level formatting function, it often helps users to format a hard drive completely and Do not leave original disk data there, as well as to eliminate some basic hard drive problems.

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 Advantages

  • Most of their tools are free.
  • Not only supports external hard drives, but also reads internal hard drives.
  • It offers a low-level format option to help users completely format the hard drive and make everything inside the disk easier.
  • Supports external memory cards, such as SD, MMC, memory cards, CF cards and more.

Disadvantages

  • If you want to upgrade this tool and get faster speed and free lifetime updates, you need to pay a fee.
  • Recognizes the internal hard drive as one, not as separate partitions.
  • The speed of this free version is limited to 180GB per hour, which is 50MB/s.

Download here.

4. HDDLLF

As the second disk formatting tool tested and listed here, the disk formatting tool storage USB Disk is also 100% free and allows people to completely format any USB flash drive or memory card with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system formats.

Advantages

  • It's free, fast and safe to format a flash drive or memory card.
  • It supports all USB flash drives and memory cards, such as pen drive, thumb drive, CF, SD, Micro SD, TF, SDXC, SDHC memory card and more storage devices with different bands.
  • Supports USB drives and memory cards with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types.
  • It helps to format the storage device and also deletes all the stored videos, music and files completely.

Disadvantages

  • It also does not read any internal hard drive or partition.
  • You need to upgrade the software to the pro version to get more features, such as creating a bootable USB disk, formatting a USB disk not recognized by Windows, doing a low-level format, or adjusting the cluster size for the USB disk for faster speed, etc.
  • It supports FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types only.

Download here.

5. Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter

Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter is also a disk formatting program Free software that helps everyone to format hard drive and partition to FAT32 for free. With a user-friendly interface, this software can also help delete or initialize a drive or partition without any hassle.

Advantages

  • It's free and easy to understand.
  • Allows users to delete or initialize hard drive partitions with simple clicks.
  • Reads all internal hard drives of the computer as separate partitions.
  • Allows the user to format the drive or partition to FAT32.

Disadvantages

  • It is able to format only unallocated space to FAT32 file system type.
  • Allows people to format or partition hard drive to FAT32.
  • It is compatible with Windows XP/Vista/2000/7.

Download here.

6. Paragon

Paragon Partition Manager is a software that allows the user to create multiple partitions on the hard drive, and this is done with the click of a button. The entire process can be done in a matter of minutes, and once done, the user can boot the computer using the OS X installation discs.

The entire operation is completed without any interruption in the normal operation of the computer. It is not necessary to have previous experience in this sector, since This data recovery software for Mac It is very easy to install and run.

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It will install all the necessary software like FAT32, X File system and also has the tools to create boot partitions and extended partitions.

Advantages

  • Converting volumes to FAT32, NTFS and HFS systems.
  • Establishes a connection to a mounted network.
  • Injects drivers for storage devices.
  • Runs drive integrity checks.

Disadvantages

  • The installation file is too large.
  • Limited use.

Download here.

You may want to know: Fix Error "Windows Could Not Complete The Format"

7. AOMEI

Of the programs for formatting hard drives, this is the most versatile. It is a program that can be used to create, repair and format partitions on a computer. This is very useful for any user who regularly uses computers with multiple hard drives.

Moreover, if you are a NAS device owner, AOMEI can also be helpful as it helps in partitioning your NAS device and creating bootable media like USB flash drives and CDs. By the way, you can use NAS software to keep your data reliably protected.

Advantages

  • The interface is easy to use and understand.
  • Supports most common partitioning tasks.
  • Use step-by-step wizards to complete tasks quickly.
  • It can run before Windows starts.

Disadvantages

  • Cannot convert dynamic disks to basic disks.
  • Cannot convert between primary and logical partitions.

Download here.

8. Tenorshare

Tenorshare Partition Manager is a program to manage partitions on hard drives and SSD. Provides everything you need to prepare new disks or optimize space utilization of existing partitions.

With this program, you can create, delete, format, resize, clone or split the memory into additional partitions. The application also allows you to rename and assign letters to any volume.

Advantages

  • Works with many file systems.
  • Friendly interface.
  • You can see the virtual changes before applying.
  • You can create a primary and extended partition.

Disadvantages

  • Some features that many users demand are missing.
  • Cannot resize partition.

Download here.

9. MiniTool

MiniTool Partition Wizard is a Very popular free PC tool for formatting your hard drives. The program can be downloaded from the company's official website. You can use this software to format a USB flash drive, CD, DVD, Zip drive, and other removable media, including an iPod. It is very easy to use and comes with tutorials that guide you step by step to achieve the goal.

Advantages

  • Remarkable UI and functionality.
  • Operations are carried out quickly.
  • Possibility of using most types of discs.

Disadvantages

  • The cost of the PRO version is quite high.

Download here.

10. EaseUS

EaseUS Partition Master is one of the most well-known brands of hard drive formatting and data recovery software. This software can be used to recover data from several different types of external drives, such as CDs, DVDs, and even Zip disks.

The good thing about EaseUS Partition Master is that has been programmed to automatically perform several tests different and recover deleted files as well as formatted partitions that have been lost due to hard drive or operating system failure.

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Moreover, this software comes with a wide range of features that enable it to run quickly and efficiently. Apart from this, the software has also been designed in such a way that it can easily handle encrypted and protected files as well as data that has been deleted or altered in some way.

Advantages

  • Allows you to preview changes before applying them.
  • Very user friendly
  • Supports massive action
  • It includes many useful operations.

Disadvantages

Download here.

Alternative: Format with cmd

It works when Windows could not complete the format. To format, follow the steps below:

  • Step 1: opens cmd writing "cmd"Or in"Search programs and files» at Windows startup.
  • Step 2: write the letters inside the quote «format F: / fs: fat32» and enter. F should be replaced with the drive you want to format.

Wipe sensitive data on hard drive/USB flash drive

This can be done by using the free software Partition Resizer Free. Some users want to download hard drive formatting software in order to remove personal information from their storage media as they do not want to share any bytes of sensitive data with others.

In case you want to delete sensitive data with USB formatting tools, we recommend this free software – Partition Resizer Free, as it is built with a feature: 'Wipe Partition' You could erase the entire disk or USB by writing 0 or 1 to the disk, which causes the old data to be completely overwritten and cannot be restored by any data recovery program. Follow these steps:

  • Step 1: download and install Partition Resizer Free and get the usb/card into your PC if you want to remove an external device.
  • Step 2: start Partition Resizer Free and then right click on the media you want to remove privacy from.
  • Step 3: Choose a cleaning method. The time consumption depends on the amount of data on your media. Usually, 120GB data would take about 10 minutes.

You need to learn: How to Reinstall Windows 10 Without Losing Your Files

Final thoughts

No matter why you need to format a hard drive or memory card, there are always five common ways to choose, such as formatting it in My PC, perform a formatting process in Disk Management, format a hard drive with a common line, perform a formatting process with partition management software or programs to format hard drives.

No matter which way you choose in the end, I hope you can extract and save important data backups well in advance to avoid unexpected problems or data loss. Don't forget that you are free to leave any comments in the corresponding section.