Solved: Verbatim USB Flash Drive Cannot Be Formatted

Scenario

“I have a Verbatim STORE-N-GO (95312) 32 GB flash drive, and I have a problem that I can’t format this verbatim flash drive, it says write protected. I don’t know how to solve it. Is there anyone who can help me?”

Verbatim USB flash drive cannot be formatted

Actually, there are many users encountered the problem that verbatim USB flash drive cannot be formatted. Why? There are some reasons would cause the problem:

1. The verbatim USB flash drive is write-protected as the Scenario said；

2. The verbatim USB flash drive is physical damaged;

3. The verbatim USB drive is infected by virus;

4. There are bad sectors on the verbatim USB drive.

If you have meet any situations we mentioned above, the Windows was unable to complete the format. Fortunately, you can solve the problem as following methods.

How to format verbatim USB flash drive successfully?

Different situations need different solutions to solve the verbatim cannot be formatted problem. And here you can do as following methods.

Method 1. Remove write-protected and format verbatim USB flash drive

There are many situations would cause USB flash drive write-protected.

1. Change the physical switch on the USB drive

There may be a physical switch along the edge of the USB which allows the USB drive to be protected. Thus, you need to unlock the switch so that it can work normally again. After that, you can use Windows tools to format verbatim USB flash drive easily.

2. Remove read-only via Diskpart

If it is not because of the physical switch, you need to consider that whether the USB drive is in read only status.

1>. Press Windows + R keys simultaneously. Input “cmd” in the Run dialog and hit Enter key to open the command prompt window as administrator.

2>. Type diskpart and press Enter to launch Diskpart.exe program.

3>. Then, type the following command and hit Enter after each command.

list disk

select disk n

attributes disk

Here you can see Current Read-only State: Yes.

Then, you need to type attributes disk clear readonly command and hit Enter to clear read only on the USB drive.

After that, you are able to format the USB drive successfully.

3. Using a verbatim USB format tool

Although, your verbatim USB flash drive cannot be formatted in Windows still happened. There is another reason- You can't format a USB larger than 32GB into FAT32 with Windows Disk Management or Diskpart. Thus, you may need a verbatim USB format tool to format your Verbatim USB drive that is larger than 32GB to FAT32. Here we highly recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, which can help you format the verbatim USB drive easily and it is free.

Free download AOMEI Partition Assistant. Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP is supported. Windows Server users should use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition.

Then, you can follow the steps below to format the verbatim USB drive.

Warning: Please backup your valuable data before formatting. The operation will erase all your data after formatting.

Step 1. Connect your Verbatim USB flash drive with your computer via USB port. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, on the home window, right-click the Verbatim USB flash drive and select “Format Partition” at the drop down menu.

Step 2. Here you can select "File System" as FAT32 (or others according to your needs), edit “Partition label” and “Cluster Size” according to your needs. Then hit “OK”.

Step 3. Click “Apply” to confirm the “Pending Operations”.

Method 2. Change a new USB drive instead of the damaged USB drive

If your verbatim USB flash drive cannot be formatted is because of physical damage, then, you need to replace it with a new one.

Method 3. Run anti-virus software

Virus infection is another reason that may cause USB drives cannot to be formatted. Thus, you need to run anti-virus software to remove the virus on the USB drive, and then, try to format it again.

Method 4. Repair bad sectors on the USB drive

Bad sectors on a USB drive may cause your verbatim USB flash drive cannot to be formatted. For this situation, you can run the CHKDSK utility to fix the corrupted USB drive.

1. Press Windows key + R key to the open Run box, input “cmd” and hit Enter to open the command prompt window.

2. Input “chkdsk e: /f”, where “e” is the drive letter of the partition on the verbatim USB drive. This command will help you check and fix errors on the USB drive. After that, you are able to format the verbatim USB drive successfully.

Note:

If you are prompted by the message – The operation could not be completed because the volume is dirty, you can try the following command: chkdsk e: /f/r/x to remove the dirty bit and write protection on the USB drive.

After that, you can input “exit” to close this window and format your USB drive.

Conclusion

Those are solutions for verbatim USB flash drive cannot be the formatted problem. Hope it can help you to solve your problem. AOMEI Partition Assistant is a  powerful and convenient tool for all Windows users. If you want to convert MBR to a GPT disk for the Windows 11 upgrade, you can also trust this handy tool to smoothly upgrade.