Mostly there are no problems while formatting the USB drive but sometimes they just refuse to be formatted especially when they are in bootable format. I used my USB key as booting device to install Ubuntu. After that when I tried formatting the USB drive in Windows, I got this error “Windows was unable to complete the format”.
There are several ways to solve this problem. One of them might work for you. Try them one by one.
Try formatting with different file systems: Right click on the drive and click format. First approach should be to format the drive using different file systems. Try formatting with all the available file systems (exFAT in particular if it was a bootable drive).
Use Windows Disk Management:
- Right click on Computer.
- Choose Manage
- Choose Disk Management under Storage on the left panel
- Choose your disk and right click for formatting
- Click yes for the pop-ups
Use Specialized softwares: You can use Easeus Partition Master for a forced format. Here is the download link:
Hope it helps you. Questions and suggestions are welcomed. Enjoy 