How to Fix the Incorrect USB Drive Size Issue

A USB flash drive, formerly known as a pen drive, is typically the most commonly used portable storage device that we all carry around in our pockets or bags. This tiny yet spacious gadget helps us store documents, photos, movies, and any files to transfer safely and smoothly between digital devices. However, recently, many users have found their flash drives showing incorrect capacity – either more or less than it should. It's a strange USB drive size issue that they've never encountered before on forums like Tom's Hardware and Reddit. **How to fix USB drive size** has become a hot topic of discussion.

Why does my flash drive show wrong capacity?

It is quite common to encounter various brands and capacities of USB flash drives with the following problem: The 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB USB drive shows only hundreds of MB when inserted into the computer. In other words, the available space on the USB drive has shrunk significantly for no reason. At this point, do you want to restore the USB drive to its original size? Can the lost space be retrieved? Don't worry. When the USB drive capacity is incorrect, your USB drive actually still has its original storage space, and you just need to figure out a way to restore USB flash drive to full capacity.

First, you need to figure out when and why you're seeing the incorrect USB drive size. The reasons vary, but common causes include:

• Your computer is infected with a virus.
• Your flash drive has more than one partition, but Windows only recognizes the first one.
• You've formatted a 64GB USB flash drive to FAT32, but the maximum size for a FAT32 file system is 32GB.
• Your flash drive was created as a bootable drive with a portable Windows OS.
• Unnoticed space occupies the disk space, such as a large amount of unallocated space, hidden recovery partitions, invisible shadow files, and so on.

So, what is the best way to fix a USB drive showing wrong size? Regardless of the reason, you have two universal methods to restore your flash drive to its original state: [1] Reformat the USB flash drive; [2] Format and recreate the USB drive partition.

Related Reading: SSD Shows Wrong Capacity

How to Fix the Problem of Incorrect USB Drive Size

Please read through the two methods below and learn how to resolve the USB drive incorrect size issue with a third-party USB formatting tool or the Diskpart command. With reformatting, you can easily reset the wrong USB drive size and restore the false capacity to the actual one.

#1. Solve USB Drive Incorrect Capacity Issue with Partition Master Tool

Windows offers formatting options for internal and external hard drives via Explorer and Disk Management. However, the built-in tools are too basic to fix USB flash drive size issues. If you attempt to format with Windows once, it may fail with error messages like "Windows was unable to complete the format" or "Format did not complete successfully."

Then, you need to turn to a professional third-party USB formatting tool immediately. The reputable partition magic software – tools Partition Master, is your top choice. It's user-friendly and powerful. Three simple steps are enough to fix the wrong USB drive size issue.

To resolve the issue where the USB drive shows incorrect size, follow these steps:

Step 1: Select the USB drive you want to format.

Plug in your USB drive or flash drive to your computer. Download and launch a partitioning software. Right-click the USB drive you want to format, then click “Format.”

Step 2. Choose the USB drive letter and file system.

Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT) and cluster size to the selected partition, then click “OK”.

Step 3: Select “Yes” to confirm formatting the USB device.

If a warning window appears, click Yes. Back up your data in advance if it is important.

Step 4: Apply the changes.

First, click on the “Execute 1 Task(s)” button, and then click “Apply” to format the USB drive.

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This tool can also come in handy when your hard drive shows wrong capacity. Don't miss it.

#2. Fix the Incorrectly-sized USB Drive using DiskPart Command

When you have multiple partitions on your flash drive, you need to delete all of them, format the drive, and then recreate partitions. The tool Partition Master can help you delete all partitions and create new ones, but in this article, we'll focus on the Command Prompt, which is an essential tool for Windows users to fix most computer issues, including the incorrect size of your USB drive.

Diskpart can be a little tricky to use for new users, and that's why I decided to make this guide to help them out.

The steps to resolve the USB drive size incorrect issue using CMD are as follows:

Step 1. Search for Command Prompt on Windows 10/8/7 and run it as an administrator.

Step 2. Type diskpart in the Command Prompt window, and press Enter.

Step 3. Type list disk, then hit Enter. Type select disk N and press Enter, where N is the number of your flash drive's disk. If your flash drive is Disk 2, type select disk 2.

Step 4. Enter each of the following commands one at a time, pressing Enter after you type each one:

• Clean
• Create primary partition
• Format fs=ntfs (to format the drive as FAT32, type format fs=fat32 quick)
• Assign

Step 5: Type exit to close the Command Prompt.

For more, please see the video below.

In short

We have tutorial articles on the topics of “How to fix USB drive size” and “How to fix a flash drive showing wrong capacity.” The tool Partition Master is a third-party partition manager with loads of disk and partition management solutions, while CMD is an advanced Windows program that can resolve many complex computer issues. The former is relatively easy to use, hence friendly to both regular computer users and experienced consumers. However, commands are particularly applicable to professionals with good computer skills.

Depending on your preference, you can try any of these tools to restore your USB drive to its original state without losing capacity.