How to Unlock Write Protection on My USB Drive in Windows 7. Enabling write protection on a Universal Serial Bus drive prevents users from adding, copying or deleting data from the device.

If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.

This guide show how to format a USB drive to FAT32 file system using File Explorer and Disk Management tool on a Windows 11/10 PC.

You can format your external hard drive or USB drive using PowerShell. Follow this tutorial to change drive letter, create partition, etc.

If you want to re-format an external hard drive (a drive you plug into your computer, instead of installing inside of your computer) or flash drive, it's extremely easy to do.

However, they can also have format errors that make them “undeletable.” Further reading: How to format USB sticks and external drives in Windows Such situations no doubt are frustrating.

As an additional security layer, you can use this guide to enable write protection on Windows 10 to prevent users from copying data to a USB drive.

I was able to format the USB drive with the file system I needed. Important to note however, that I did not have an issue going into "My Computer" right clicking the drive and choosing format.

We cover how you should format your USB drive before using it as a storage device, and which format to use - APFS, exFAT or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.