Properly Delete Extra Partitions on USB Drive using DiskPart

Windows does have a Disk Management tool for simple disk management operations. For USB drive or logical drive, if the drive already has more than one partition, Disk Management will not allow you manage extra partitions on removable storage devices, unless you deleted all of the partitions and make a new, full size partition. Disk Management will not provide delete volume option for extra partitions on USB drives if more than one partition is detected. How to combine two partitions or more into one and restore USB drive to it’s original state? To delete partitions on USB drive, you will need to use the command-line utility: Diskpart. Diskpart enhances the Disk Management graphical user interface (GUI). Below guide is for Windows systems only. For MacOS, you can have similar solution here Caution: When you use DiskPart to clean USB drive partition, all data on the USB will be erased.

1. start a command prompt as an administrator (CMD)

1. Click Start.
2. In the Start Search box, type cmd, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER or right click choose “Run as administrator”
3. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.

2. run DISKPART.

At the command prompt, type:

diskpart

3. List all disk in DISKPART.

At the DISKPART prompt, type:

list disk

Important! Make down the disk number of the disk from which you want to delete the partition.

4. select your USB disk which you want to delete the partition.

Replace the * with your disk number from step 3. At the DISKPART prompt, type:

select disk*

5. if you want to delete all partitions and create one full size partition, use the following command and go to step 10 below.

At the DISKPART prompt, type:

clean

6. list all partitions on the drive.

At the DISKPART prompt, type:

list partition

Make note of the number of the partition that you want to delete.

7. select the partition you want to delete.

Replace the * with your disk partition number from step 5. At the DISKPART prompt, type:

select partition*

8. delete partition.

This command will delete the partition that you select from step 7. At the DISKPART prompt, type:

delete partition

9. repeat the step 6-8 if you need to delete other partitions.

All delete partitions will be left as unallocated space.

10. you can now use Disk Management to manage the drive now.

If you want to create one full partition using DISKPART, use the following command. At the DISKPART prompt, type:

create partition primary

Step X. After all done, exit DISPART.

exit