Format drive before creating a bootable USB flash drive?

sportsfan148 · 07 Jun 2017

Hi,
If your USB flash drive has data on it or maybe an earlier version of the Windows 10 installation media for example. Do you have to format the USB flash drive manually in windows (right click and format) before using the Windows Media Creation Tool to create the Windows 10 Bootable USB flash drive installation media?
I'm wondering if you guys format the drive to empty it first. I don't know if it is necessary or not. If so what selections do you make? ... FAT32 and default allocation unit size?

CountMike · 07 Jun 2017

No need to format twice specially when it's fast format which actually doesn't replace any data on the drive. It's about same as ordinary file deletion if format isn't changed.

Berton · 07 Jun 2017

I did a couple of such 8GB drives and was warned all data on them would be lost, automatically reformatted to FAT32. Not a problem since most USB Thumb/Flash drives come formatted as FAT32, allows use on Windows, Linux and MAC OS X [latest known as macOS]. It's a lot like the old bootable floppy disks, the DOS format command with the /s switch creates the bootable part along with the formatting.

sportsfan148 · 07 Jun 2017

The reason I ask is Ive seen quite a few people on various sites who say they always format their USB flash drives manually to FAT32 before downloading the Media Creation Tool so I presumed that there might be issues

CountMike · 07 Jun 2017

sportsfan148 said:

The reason I ask is Ive seen quite a few people on various sites who say they always format their USB flash drives manually to FAT32 before downloading the Media Creation Tool so I presumed that there might be issues

Only full format may make some sense and if some other OS was on it.

sportsfan148 · 07 Jun 2017

CountMike said:

Only full format may make some sense and if some other OS was on it.

What if the USB flash drive has a previous version of the Windows 10 media on it?..one of mine has the anniversary update version on it. Is it better to be safe than sorry and format it manually before downloading the Windows Media Creation Tool? By the way Ive never used Full Format. I only ever use the default Quick Format in Windows. I haven't a clue how formatting works, if its necessary or what the Media Creation Tool requires

cereberus · 07 Jun 2017

sportsfan148 said:

What if the USB flash drive has a previous version of the Windows 10 media on it?..one of mine has the anniversary update version on it. Is it better to be safe than sorry and format it manually before downloading the Windows Media Creation Tool? By the way Ive never used Full Format. I only ever use the default Quick Format in Windows

No need whatsoever. Just let MCT do its job.

NavyLCDR · 07 Jun 2017

The first thing the Media Creation Tool is going to do to the USB flash drive is format it with an up to 32 GB FAT32 Partition marked as active. There is no need to do that ahead of time.

erpster4 · 12 Jun 2017

cereberus said:

No need whatsoever. Just let MCT do its job.

I let Rufus do the job since it can create a bootable usb flash drive for either a machine with a legacy BIOS (or UEFI with CSM option enabled) or for a machine with UEFI.

NavyLCDR · 12 Jun 2017

erpster4 said:

I let Rufus do the job since it can create a bootable usb flash drive for either a machine with a legacy BIOS (or UEFI with CSM option enabled) or for a machine with UEFI.

And the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft makes a universally bootable USB flash as well that boots in UEFI, legacy BIOS, and UEFI with CSM enabled - and you don't have to get all the settings just right and set them in the correct order.