USB Drive DISKPART “CLEAN” getting “Access is denied.” error
by Logan Rogers-Follis on Dec.30, 2023, under Techie, Windows
If a USB Drive is not able to be formatted or partitioned through the normal methods within Windows, then you may need to use DISKPART to CLEAN the drive. Recently I came across two (2) USB Drives given an “Access is denied.” error when trying to run CLEAN on them.
Below is the solution (ref: Microsoft Tech Community – USB drive cannot be cleaned or partitioned):
- Right-click the Start menu and launch “Command Prompt (Admin)“
- At the command prompt type in “diskpart“
- Type in “list disk“
- Type in “select disk #” (ie “select disk 3” if Disk 3 was the USB drive you are working with)
- If typing in “clean” returns an “Access is denied.” error message then first type in “covert gpt“
- Type in “clean” (this time it should work as expected)
- You can now close the Command Prompt and partition/format the USB Drive like normal.
NOTE: This was all done on a Windows 10 (latest build as of Dec 2023) machine.
