10 Best Free And Paid Software To Format Hard Drive on Windows and Mac

Although people using Windows and Mac computers have default software to format hard drives, many of them are still looking for the best third-party format software for more flexibility and control over the process.

Frankly speaking, the formatting procedure is very simple, sometimes compatibility issues appear that are impossible to handle if you use a standard software.

To avoid possible difficulties, you must obtain a specific instrument. To help you in this, here we will show you the best software to format hard drive.

These free formatters work for all brands and types of USB flash, hard drive, sd memory card. You can use them to force usb / disk / sd format for free and easily. It is important that before formatting, you make a backup of the data on your media.

1.HP USB

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is truly the best of hard drive formatting software as it allows people to easily and quickly format a USB flash drive.

On the other hand, it can work smoothly even when Windows has failed to complete the format because your USB flash drive has become a raw device. With this software, if needed, you can also create a bootable USB drive by choosing its " Create a bootable DOS disk " option.

Advantages

It is completely free and easy to understand and use.

• It works fine when formatting the USB drive to FAT32, FAT or NTFS.
• It is portable and can be installed on a flash drive for use on different PCs.
• It allows people to " Create a DOS Boot Disk " to help boot a computer from a USB flash drive.
• It is compatible with common Windows operating systems.

Disadvantages

• Does not recognize partitions or internal hard drives.
• It needs you to run it in "Administrator"".

Download here

2. IM-Magic Partition Resizer

As a disk formatting tool , Partition Resizer Free Edition also allows people to format hard drive or selected partition to FAT32/ntfs for free. As a partition management software, this software also helps format, create, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage partition effectively for you.

Advantages

• The home edition is free and easy.
• It helps to format hard drive or partition to FAT32 as you like.
• It also helps to format, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage computer internal hard drive partitions well.
• A video tutorial will also appear automatically and will take you through this software step by step.
• It is compatible with the latest Windows 10/8/7 Vista and XP.

Disadvantages

• This home edition is free for personal use.

Note: This freeware also provides bootable iso version which can format disk/usb in WinPE.

Download here

3. HDD Low Level Format Tool

HDD Low Level Format Tool also deserves a good place in our list of software to format hard drive. It is completely free and allows people to easily format internal and external hard drive.

With a low-level format function, it often helps users to format a hard drive completely and leave no original data on the drive there , as well as remove some basic hard drive problems.

 Advantages

• Most of its tools are free.
• It not only supports external hard drives, but also reads internal hard drives.
• It offers a low-level format option to help users completely format the hard drive and make everything inside the drive easy.
• Supports external memory cards, such as SD, MMC, memory cards, CF cards and more.

Disadvantages

• If you want to update this tool and get faster speed and lifetime free updates, you need to pay a fee.
• It recognizes the internal hard drive as one, not separate partitions.
• The speed of this free version is capped at 180 GB per hour, which is 50 MB/s.

Download here

4. HDDLLF

As the second tested and listed drive formatting tool here, USB Drive Storage Formatting Tool is also 100% free and allows people to fully format any USB flash drive or memory card with FAT file system formats, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS.

Advantages

• It's free, fast and safe to format a flash drive or memory card.
• It is compatible with all USB flash drives and memory cards, such as pen drive, thumb drive, CF, SD, Micro SD, TF, SDXC, SDHC memory card and more storage devices with different bands.
• Supports USB drives and memory cards with FAT, FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS file system types.
• It helps to format the storage device and also removes all stored videos, music and files completely.

Disadvantages

• It also does not read any internal hard drives or partitions.
• You need to upgrade the software to pro version to get more features, like create bootable USB disk, format USB disk not recognized by Windows, do low-level format, or adjust cluster size for USB disk for faster speed. fast, among others.
• It supports FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types only.

Download here

5. Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter

Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter is also a free disk formatting software that helps everyone to format hard drive and partition to FAT32 for free. With a user-friendly interface, this software can also help you delete or initialize a drive or partition without any hassle.

Advantages

• It is free and easy to understand.
• It allows users to delete or initialize hard drive partitions with simple clicks.
• Read all internal hard drives of the computer as separate partitions.
• Allows the user to format the drive or partition to FAT32.

Disadvantages

• It is capable of formatting only Unallocated space into FAT32 file system type.
• It allows people to format hard drive or partition to FAT32.
• It is compatible with Windows XP/Vista/2000/7.

Download here

6. Paragon

Paragon Partition Manager is software that allows the user to create multiple partitions on the hard drive, and this is done with the click of a button. The entire process can be done in a matter of minutes, and once done, the user can boot the computer using the OS X installation discs.

The entire operation is completed without any interruption in the normal functioning of the computer. No prior experience in this industry is necessary as this Mac data recovery software is very easy to install and run.

It will install all the necessary software like FAT32, X File system and it also has the tools to create boot partitions and extended partitions.

Advantages

• Volume conversion to FAT32, NTFS and HFS systems.
• Establishes a connection to a mounted network.
• Inject drivers for storage devices.
• Runs drive integrity checks.

Disadvantages

• The installation file is too large.
• Limited use.

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7. AOMEI

Of the software to format hard drive, this is the most versatile. It is a software that can be used to create, repair and format partitions on a computer . This is very useful for any user who regularly uses computers with multiple hard drives.

Also, if you own a NAS device, AOMEI can also come in handy as it helps in partitioning your NAS device and creating bootable media such as USB sticks and CDs. By the way, you can use NAS software to reliably keep your data protected.

Advantages

• The interface is easy to use and understand.
• Supports the most common partitioning tasks.
• Use step-by-step wizards to complete tasks quickly.
• It can be run before Windows starts.

Disadvantages

• Dynamic disks cannot be converted to basic disks.
• You cannot convert between primary and logical partitions.

Download here

8. Tenorshare

Tenorshare Partition Manager is a software for managing partitions on hard drives and SSDs. It offers everything you need to prepare new disks or optimize the space utilization of existing partitions.

With this software, you can create, delete, format, resize, clone or divide memory into additional partitions. The app also allows you to rename and assign letters to any volume.

Advantages

• It works with many file systems.
• Friendly interface.
• You can see the virtual changes before applying.
• You can create primary and extended partition.

Disadvantages

• Some features that many of the users demand are missing.
• Cannot resize partition.

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9. Mini Tool

MiniTool Partition Wizard is a very popular free PC tool to format your hard drives. The software can be downloaded from the official website of the company. You can use this software to format a USB flash drive, CD, DVD, Zip drive, and other removable media, including an iPod. It is very easy to use and comes with tutorials that guide you step by step to achieve the goal.

Advantages

• Remarkable UI and functionality.
• The operations are carried out quickly.
• Ability to use most types of discs.

Disadvantages

• The cost of the PRO version is quite high.

Download here

10. Ease US

EaseUS Partition Master is one of the most well-known brands of hard drive formatting and data recovery software. This software can be used to recover data from several different types of external drives, such as CDs, DVDs, and even Zip disks.

The great thing about EaseUS Partition Master is that it has been programmed to automatically perform several different tests and recover deleted files as well as formatted partitions that have been lost due to hard drive or operating system failure.

Furthermore, this software comes with a wide range of features that allow it to run quickly and efficiently. Apart from this, the software has also been designed in such a way that it can easily handle encrypted and protected files as well as data that has been deleted or altered in any way.

Advantages

• It allows you to preview the changes before applying them.
• Very user friendly
• Supports mass action
• It includes many useful operations.

Disadvantages

• You cannot create a partition for system recovery.

Download here

Alternative: Format with cmd

It works when Windows could not complete the format. To format, follow the steps below:

• Step 1: Open cmd by typing " cmd " or " Search programs and files " at Windows startup.
• Step 2: Type the letters inside the quote " format F:/fs:fat32 " and enter. F should be replaced with the drive you want to format.

Delete sensitive data on hard drive / USB flash drive

You can do this using the free Partition Resizer Free software. Some users want to download hard drive formatting software in order to remove personal information from their storage media as they don't want to share any byte of sensitive data with another.

In case of deleting sensitive data with USB formatting tools, we recommend you this freeware: Partition Resizer Free as it is built with a function: 'Wipe Partition' that you could erase the entire drive or usb by writing 0 or 1 to the drive , which causes the old data to be completely overwritten and cannot be restored by any data recovery software. Follow these steps:

• Step 1: Download and install Partition Resizer Free and get the usb/card on your PC if you want to remove external device.
• Step 2: Launch Partition Resizer Free , and then right-click the media you want to remove privacy from.
• Step 3 – Choose a cleaning method. Time consumption depends on the amount of data on your media. Usually 120GB data would take about 10 minutes.

Conclusion

No matter why you need to format a hard drive or memory card, there are always five common ways for you to choose, such as format it in My Computer, perform a format process in Disk Management, format a hard drive with common line, do a formatting process with partition management software or hard drive formatting software.

No matter which way you choose in the end, I hope you can extract and backup important data well in advance to avoid unexpected problems or data loss. Do not forget that you are free to place any comment in the corresponding section.

The above content published at Collaborative Research Group is for informational purposes only and has been developed by referring to reliable sources and recommendations from experts. We do not have any contact with official entities nor do we intend to replace the information that they emit.