Summary:
Wondering why USB Drive doesn't show its full capacity? One of the common problems that can happen to a USB drive is that the flash drive does not display sufficient space. if you face the same issue then keep reading this article, and you can find the step-by-step procedure to restore the USB drive back to full capacity using Diskpart.
Why USB Drive doesn't show full capacity?
It is really annoying to be unable to use the USB drive’s storage to its full capacity. This happens when your USB drive is infected with malware, which hides the actual storage capacity. This not only hides the capacity of the drive but also makes your file inaccessible on a USB drive. So, how to restore USB drive’s back to full storage capacity?
Caution! With the help of Diskpart will make your Pendrive back to full capacity, but this will completely wipe the entire data on a USB drive. If you are unable to access the data, you can use data recovery software to recover data from USB drive. In addition, please be very careful to choose the correct partition or USB drive before formatting or cleaning it, else you can accidentally wipe the wrong disk.
Methods to Restore USB Drive Back to Full Capacity
Basically, there are two methods to restore USB Drive back to full capacity.
Method 1: Clean the USB Drive with Diskpart
Method 2: Formatting USB Drive with Disk management
First, launch the command prompt as Admin. In Windows 10 and 8, you can just right-click the Windows icon or you can press Windows Key + X and select Command Prompt (Admin).
Else, you have to search for Command Prompt by typing the same in the search box. Now, right-click on the shortcut Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.
To use Diskpart to clean the drive, make sure the USB drive, SD card, or any other memory card that you want to clean is connected to your computer.
Method 1: Clean the USB Drive Using Diskpart
- Type Diskpart command in the Command Prompt and press Enter.
2. Type list disk command to know how many disks are connected to the computer.
If you carefully observe the image below; Disk 0 is 465 GB and Disk 1 is 4700 MB. The USB drive that we want to clean is 8 GB. By this, we know that Disk 0 is the computer’s internal drive and Disk 1 is the USB drive.
- Once you are confirmed about the disk you want to clean, type select disk followed by the disk number and press Enter.
- The disk is selected as you have mentioned. Now, any action you perform will be performed on the chosen disk. To wipe the disk completely clean type the command clean and press Enter.
- You’ll now see Diskpart succeeded in cleaning the disk. So your disk has been wiped out and you are done with this task.
- You can see the USB drive without partition, To create a partition Type Create partition primary on the command prompt and hit Enter. Now type format fs=ntfs quick and hit Enter. To format your newly created partition.
Note: Learn more about Diskpart with this Diskpart guide to make better use of it, and also learn why SD card not showing files.
Method 2: Formatting USB Drive using Disk Management
In Windows, Disk Management is a system utility that allows you to perform advanced storage tasks, this will help you to restore your USB drive back to its full capacity. if you are unable to clean the USB Drive (by following method 1). Follow this below method it is much easier.
- Click Windows+R simultaneously, in the Run dialog box type diskmgmt.msc.
- Click on Format and set the parameters for formatting like volume, file system, allocation unit size. And click Ok.
Wait till the formating process is reached 100%. Now, your USB Drive will be formatted to its original state. But, formatting will lead to data loss. however, you can recover data from a formatted USB drive easily.
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Final words:
Now, your USB drive should show the full capacity and function properly. If the above procedure is not working, then you are trying to clean the USB drive which is not recognizable or It is unable to partition the drive. In such a case then the USB drive is physically damaged and cannot be used to its full capacity.
