Tuesday, March 19, 2024

How to remove all partitions on an USB stick / SD card

A user just leaved a comment in another posting regarding USB sticks that he isnĀ“t any longer able to remove all partitions on his USB stick / SD card. He see multiple partitions but is unable to delete them.

The solution is using diskpart here. So do the following

1.) Open CMD (run as admin)

2.) start diskpart via

diskpart

3.) now enter list disk which would look similar like my output:

DISKPART> list disk

Ā  Disk ###Ā  StatusĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  SizeĀ Ā Ā Ā  FreeĀ Ā Ā Ā  DynĀ  Gpt
Ā  --------Ā  -------------Ā  -------Ā  -------Ā  ---Ā  ---
Ā  Disk 0Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  476 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā  0 B
Ā  Disk 1Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  232 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā  0 B
Ā  Disk 2Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  14 GBĀ Ā Ā  14 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  *
Ā  Disk 3Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  28 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā  0 B

4.) In the case above we would like to remove every partition on disk 2 and 3. Keep noted that if you select the wrong disk here, you might kill everything on it. So make sure you are using the correct one via:

select disk 2

or

select disk 3

5.) check if the disk is relay selected with

DISKPART> list disk

Ā  Disk ###Ā  StatusĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  SizeĀ Ā Ā Ā  FreeĀ Ā Ā Ā  DynĀ  Gpt
Ā  --------Ā  -------------Ā  -------Ā  -------Ā  ---Ā  ---
Ā  Disk 0Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  476 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā  0 B
Ā  Disk 1Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  232 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā  0 B
Ā  Disk 2Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  14 GBĀ Ā Ā  14 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  *
* Disk 3Ā Ā Ā  OnlineĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  28 GBĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā  0 B

There should be now a “*” in front of it

6.) Clear the configuration information from the selected disk via

clean

7.) Optional: To re-use the USB / SD card you need to add a new partition here (as you removed the old one) this can be done via:

7a.) Make sure the correct disk is selected via

list disk

if not make sure you select the correct disk with

select disk 2

The number might be different in your environment

7b.) create one partition for the whole disk via

create part primary

7c.) select this new partition via

select part 1

7c.) make this partition as active via

active

7d.) format your new disk

format fs=NTFS label=”14GB”

or

format fs=NTFS QUICK label=”14GB”

Ā 

P.S.

This might also be usefull if the USB card was used in a unknown OS / system and you would like to re-use it.

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