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In this piece, we’ll talk about the likely reasons for this error and how to fix “You Need To Format The Disk In Drive” Error. When you add an external hard drive, USB flash drive, or SD card, you may get an error message that says, “You need to format the disk in drive E: before you can use it.” In this case, you shouldn’t format the drive right away because you might lose info.
Also, there is no guarantee that the drive will be useful again after formatting. You need to know that this problem isn’t limited to external drives. It can also happen with drives that are already in your system. When you unplug an SD card, USB drive, external hard drive, or any other portable storage without using the Safely Remove option, you risk corrupting the disk partition.
If this happens, Windows won’t be able to read the device, which will cause the “You need to format…” message to show. An external hard drive is very helpful when you want to copy big files between computers or back up important files like photos, videos, documents, and other data. Usually, they have a lot of space and can be linked to a computer through a USB port or FireWire. If you want to know more information about this error Visit Official Microsoft Support site.
Ways to Fix “You Need To Format The Disk In Drive” Error
Perform a Complete Shutdown
Fast Start-up is turned on by default in latest versions of the Windows operating system from Microsoft. It puts the system and kernel-level processes to sleep so that your computer can start up faster after being turned off. But if something goes wrong with the core system services and they stop working right, you will always see the error message. So, a full shutdown can help all core services start up again.
- Press Win + R to launch the Run command box.
- Type cmd in the text input box and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open Command Prompt with administrator privileges.
- Input the following command and press the enter key: shutdown /s /f /t 0
- It will take longer than usual for your system to shut down. Power it on again and open File Explorer.
- Click on the USB disk and check if you are able to access the files on it.
Scan the Hard Disk Using CHKDSK
The USB disk could have bad files or sections, so Windows will ask you to format it before you can use it. But you can use the CHKDSK tool to look for errors on the USB disk and fix them. It will look at all the files on the drive and fix it. You can either use the command prompt or the Properties box in File Explorer to run CheckDisk.
Change the USB Drive Letter Using Disk Management
Changing the drive letter could help fix the USB drive error on your machine and make it usable. To change the drive letter, repeat the steps below:
- Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box. Type diskmgmt.msc and press the enter key.
- In the Disk Management window, find your USB disk drive and right-click on it.
- Select the Change Drive Letter and Paths option from the context menu.
- Click on the Change button. Then, click on the arrow button to expand the drop-down list and select a drive letter from it.
- Lastly, click on the OK button. Reconfirm your decision and click on the Yes button to change the Drive letter.
- You will see a system notification informing you about the Drive letter change and mounting the drive.
- Press Win + E to open the File Explorer and check whether the USB drive is accessible or not.
Check the USB Drive
If you get the same mistake when you plug the USB drive into any USB port on your computer, unplug it. Connect it to another machine and see if it shows up in Device Manager and you can open the file without any problems. If it works, make a backup copy of all the information on that machine.
Use a Linux Installation Media to Access the USB Disk Drive
This is more of a workaround to keep your info from being lost. If you don’t have a second computer nearby, you can make Linux installation media and use the Try Ubuntu mode to mount and access the contents of the USB disk. It will save you the trouble of looking for another computer, and you will be able to back up the USB disk. To use Linux installation media to open the USB drive, repeat the steps below:
- Plug the Linux installation media into your system.
- Press the Esc key and power on your system to enter the boot devices menu. Select the Linux installation media and boot it up.
- In the Grub menu, select the Try or install Ubuntu option. Wait for the setup Window to launch and then click on the Try Ubuntu option.
- Go to the left-hand side menu and click on the Files app.
- Click on the USB disk name in the navigation pane to open it. Now, you can copy these files to another location on your hard drive or an external hard disk.
- After you finish copying the contents of the USB disk, click on the power icon and choose the Power off option to close the Try Ubuntu mode.
Do a Clean Boot
Third-party apps and services can get in the way of system apps and stop them from working as they should. So, give your machine a clean boot. It will stop all third-party apps and services from running when the computer starts up. If you can now reach the disk, do a clean boot again while turning on third-party services one by one to find the program that is causing the problem.
Run an SFC and DISM Scan
If running “Check Disk” doesn’t help and you still get the message, your system files may be missing or broken. Start by running an SFC scan to find and fix any damaged system files. After that, use DISM to scan the Windows installation picture to fix it. Make sure you can connect to the internet so that the DISM check works without any problems.