May 08, 2025 • Filed to: SD Card Solutions • Proven solutions
SD cards perform better when they were completely formatted. But there are several instances when Windows can't format the SD card completely. If this is the case with you, and you are wondering about how do I fix the issue of SD card not completely formatted by windows? You are at the right place.
This trusted and tested guidance will make the task of formatting easy and efficient for you.
Formatting your SD card in Windows is one of the efficient techniques. But getting a message "Windows was unable to complete the format" is annoying for many. There are many possible causes for the same. It involves both technical as well as human errors. To make it easier for you let us discuss some of the common cases.
Note: It is advised to create a backup of your data before beginning the process of formatting. After formatting, you cannot access data from the SD card.
It is a frustrating process to get involved in back to back techniques for formatting SD cards. It takes both time and effort. The reality is, a lot of techniques are available online that are not tested. Thus, they create more damage than repair.
To make the process of formatting easy for you we chose 5 trusted and tested techniques. These techniques are easy and effective to use. Just follow some steps to completely format the SD card on windows.
Write protection is a physical mechanism. It prevents accessors from modifying or erasing data from the SD card. It means once the SD card is protected, you require a password to access data.
If Windows was unable to complete the SD card format process, you can go with the below-mentioned technique. You need to give some simple commands to fix the issue.
Once you are done with typing commands, wait for some time for the process to complete. Once completed you are good to go.
When your SD card becomes RAW, you will not able to format the SD card on windows. In this case, you can go with Windows Disk Management. It is an efficient solution to the problem. For this just follow some simple steps.
The process of formatting will take some moments to complete. Once this process is completed, you are good to go.
If you are struggling to find the right solution to format your SD card on Windows, your search ends here. You can easily format your SD card using some of the simple commands. Diskpart is a special built-in tool in Windows that helps you to manage your hard drives and other external storage media.
You can also use it to format your SD card. It involves some simple commands that you are required to type in manually.
This will begin the process of formatting. Once the process is completed you will get the following message "Diskpart successfully formatted the volume". Now finally type "exit" to leave the command prompt.
There are several instances when Windows couldn't able to detect the SD card. There are many reasons for this. The most common is the missing drive letter. In this situation, you can change the drive letter. This will make the SD card recognizable. Once it is recognized, you can easily format.
SD card bad sectors are one of the common reasons for inaccessible data. But it is not permanent. You can repair bad sectors by using the drive error checking feature. For this, you are required to go through some easy steps.
There are many circumstances when you have to format your SD card. It may be due to full storage, error, irregular behavior, and so on. But the process of formatting risks a loss of data. To prevent this situation, we are providing you with some useful tips on formatting the SD card.
Windows utilities give you an option to safely format your SD card. For this, you can take the help of File Explorer. It is one of the simple and efficient techniques to format the SD card.
It is advised to create a backup of your data before beginning the process of formatting. Once the card is formatted you will not able to access any of your data. There are a lot of options to format the SD card. You can upload data on cloud storage. You can even create a backup on your PC.
The best method to do so is to copy-paste your data. Let us go through this process.
There are several instances when you couldn't able to find data in your SD card. In this scenario, Windows were unable to format the micro SD card. To fix this issue you can go with Recoverit Data recovery software. It is one of the best software to recover data on both Windows and Mac. You just need to follow 3 simple steps.
Step 1: Insert your SD card into the card reader and connect it to the PC. Now launch Recoverit Data Recovery software. Now select the SD from where you want to recover your lost data. Once chosen, click on "Start".
Step 2: The software will start scanning the lost files and presents you with the list of lost files.
Step 3: Once the process of scanning is completed you can preview the files that you want to recover. Once you are assured, just click on "Recover" and you are done.
There are several instances when Windows was unable to format the SD card. When it comes to solutions, a lot of techniques are available online for the same. The thing is, most of these techniques cause more damage than repair. To help you out, we presented you with the top 5 trusted and tested techniques.
1. Why can't I format my SD card?
There are many possible reasons, for example:
2. How do I fix the format that did not complete successfully?
3. How do I force a micro SD card to format?
4. How do I fix a corrupted micro SD card?
Eleanor Reed
staff Editor