Clear/Reformat/Erase/Wipe SD Card & USB Flash Drive

Updated by

Tracy King 

Written by

Jean 

Updated on Mar 29, 2025

Differences between erasing and formatting a memory card/USB drive

In many cases, you should clear or reformat an SD card, USB flash drive, pen drive, or hard drive for certain reasons. Both of the operations will wipe all your data on the device but they are usually done for a different purpose.

You may clear or wipe an SD card/USB flash drive to:

• Gain more device when the SD card or USB drive is full
• Erase all the data on the SD card, USB flash drive before selling
• Remove unknown virus or malware on SD card or USB flash drive

You may reformat an SD card/USB flash drive to:

• Clean SD card, USB flash drive, hard drive and delete its partitions when the devices are not working properly
• Change RAW to FAT32, NTFS or other file systems to fix a RAW issue
• Restore SD card to full capacity when SD card does not show full capacity
• Restore USB drive back to full capacity when flash drive shows the wrong capacity
• Change the file system to use the SD card, USB flash drive, hard drive in different devices, for example, format PS4 hard drive for PC

After learning the differences between erasing and formatting an SD card/USB drive, you can choose the right method that works best to fix your issue. Here EaseUS free partition software that fully is compatible with Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista can help you wipe SD card in the easiest and most efficient way. Now, you can connect the SD card or USB drive to PC and try the step-by-step tutorial to format/clear a SD card with ease. 

How to clear, erase or wipe SD card/USB flash drive

Here list three ways to clear SD card/USB flash drive. Now, you can try the detailed steps based on your needs. We put the most straightforward way in the first position.

How to wipe a flash drive with USB eraser

Step 1. Connect the external devices to the PC. Then, right-click the external device, and choose "Wipe Disk".

Step 2. Set the number of times to wipe data. (You can set to 10 at most.) Then click "OK".

Step 3. Click "Execute 1 Task(s)" and then click "Apply".

How to wipe SD card/USB flash drive via Diskpart

For users who choose to erase SD card with Diskpart, you must use this method carefully. If you pick the wrong disk, your data will go permanently.

Step 1. Press Windows + R, input Diskpart, and press Enter. (Run Diskpart as administrator.)

Step 2. Use the Clean All function to erase SD card.

1. Input list disk > Enter. (Your SD card will listed on it.)

2. Run select disk* > Enter. (* represents the disk number the SD card.)

3. Run Clean All >Enter

How to erase SD card/USB flash drive with Disk Management

For users who do not want to use the SD card/USB eraser or the Diskpart, you can try the Windows built-in tool - Disk Management. 

Step 1. Press Windows + X and choose Disk Management.

Step 2. Format SD card.

1. Choose partition on the SD card.

2. Right-click the partition and select Format.

3. Set the Volume label, File System, Allocation unit size.

4. Click OK to wipe/erase SD card.

How to format & partition SD card/USB flash drive

• Right-click the external drive or USB you intend to format and choose "Format".
• Set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT), and Cluster size if you intend to change. Then click "OK".
• Click "Yes" to continue.
• Click the "Execute 1 Task(s)" button and click "Apply" to format your selected external hard drive or USB stick. 

You can read this post to completely format SD card/USB flash drive: How to format SD card on Windows 10.