A program for formatting an infected flash drive. Download SD Card Formatter

You can argue, but flash drives have become one of the most (if not the most) popular storage media. It is not surprising that there are quite a lot of questions regarding them: especially important among them are the issues of recovery, formatting and testing.

In this article I will present the best (in my opinion) utilities for working with drives - that is, those tools that I have used myself many times. The information in the article will be updated and expanded from time to time.

The best programs for working with a flash drive

Important! First of all, if you have problems with a flash drive, I recommend visiting the official website of its manufacturer. The fact is that the official website may have specialized utilities for data recovery (and not only!), which will cope with the task much better.

For testing

Let's start with testing drives. Let's look at programs that will help determine some of the parameters of a USB drive.

H2testw

A very useful utility for determining the actual volume of any media. In addition to the storage capacity, it can test the actual speed of its operation (which some manufacturers like to overestimate for marketing purposes).

Important! Pay special attention to testing those devices on which the manufacturer is not indicated at all. Often, for example, Chinese flash drives without markings do not correspond to their declared characteristics at all.

Check Flash

A free utility that can quickly check your flash drive for functionality, measure its real read and write speed, and completely delete all information from it (so that no utility can recover a single file from it!).

In addition, it is possible to edit information about partitions (if they are on it), make a backup copy and reanimate the image of an entire media partition!

The speed of the utility is quite high and it is unlikely that at least one competing program will do this job faster!

HD Speed

The program does not require installation. Information is presented in a clear graphical representation. Supports Russian language. Works in all versions of Windows: XP, 7, 8, 10.

CrystalDiskMark

The program supports the Russian language, although running a test in it is as easy as shelling pears - just select a carrier and press the start button (you can figure it out without knowledge of the great and mighty).

An example of the results can be seen in the screenshot above.

Flash Memory Toolkit

Flash Memory Toolkit - this program is a whole set of utilities for servicing flash drives.

Full set of functions:

• a detailed list of properties and information about the drive and USB devices;
• test to find errors when reading and writing information to the media;
• quick data clearing from the drive;
• search and recovery of information;
• backup of all files to media and the ability to restore from a backup copy;
• low-level testing of information transfer speed;
• measuring performance when working with small/large files.

FC-Test

A benchmark for measuring the real read/write speed of hard drives, flash drives, memory cards, CD/DVD devices, etc. Its main feature and difference from all utilities of this kind is that it uses real data samples to work.

Of the minuses: the utility has not been updated for quite some time (problems with newfangled media types are possible).

Flashnul

List of operations performed:

• reading test - an operation will be carried out to determine the availability of each sector on the media;
• recording test - similar to the first function;
• information integrity test - the utility checks the integrity of all data on the media;
• saving a media image - saving everything that is on the media into a separate image file;
• Loading the image into the device is similar to the previous operation.

For formatting

Important! Before using the utilities listed below, I recommend trying to format the drive in the “normal” way (Even if your flash drive is not visible in “My Computer,” you may be able to format it through computer management).

HDD Low Level Format Tool

A program that has only one task - to format the media (by the way, HDD hard drives, SSDs, and USB flash drives are supported).

Despite such a “meager” set of capabilities, it is not for nothing that this utility is in first place in this article. The fact is that it allows you to “bring back” to life even those media that are no longer visible in any other program. If this utility sees your drive, try low-level formatting it (attention! all data will be deleted!) - there is a good chance that after this format, your flash drive will work as before: without failures and errors.

USB Disk Storage Format Tool

A program for formatting and creating bootable flash drives. Supported file systems: FAT, FAT32, NTFS. The utility does not require installation, supports USB 2.0 port (USB 3.0 is not visible. Note: this port is marked in blue).

Its main difference from the standard tool in Windows for formatting drives is the ability to “see” even those media that are not visible by standard OS tools. Otherwise, the program is quite simple and concise, I recommend using it to format all “problem” flash drives.

Format USB Or Flash Drive Software

This is a simple yet neat application for quickly and easily formatting USB Flash drives.

The utility will help in cases where the standard formatting program in Windows refuses to “see” the media (or, for example, will generate errors during operation). Format USB Or Flash Drive Software can format media into the following file systems: NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT. There is a quick formatting option.

I would also like to note the simple interface: it is designed in a minimalist style, it’s easy to understand (the screenshot is shown above). In general, I recommend it!

SD Formatter

A simple utility for formatting various flash cards: SD/SDHC/SDXC.

The main difference from the standard program built into Windows is that this utility formats the media according to the type of flash card: SD/SDHC/SDXC. It is also worth noting the presence of the Russian language, a simple and understandable interface (the main program window is shown in the screenshot above).

Aomei Partition Assistant

Aomei Partition Assistant is a large free (for home use) “combine” that provides a huge number of functions and capabilities for working with hard drives and USB media.

The program supports the Russian language (but is still set to English by default), works in all popular Windows operating systems: XP, 7, 8, 10. The program, by the way, works according to its own unique algorithms (at least according to the developers of this software ), which allows it to “see” even “very problematic” media, be it a flash drive or HDD.

In general, a whole article would not be enough to describe all its properties! I recommend you try it, especially since Aomei Partition Assistant will save you not only from problems with USB drives, but also with other media.

Recovery programs

Recuva

One of the best free file recovery programs. Moreover, it supports not only USB drives, but also hard drives. Distinctive features: fast scanning of media, a fairly high degree of search for “remains” of files (i.e., the chances of returning a deleted file are quite high), a simple interface, a step-by-step recovery wizard (even complete “beginners” can handle it).

R Saver

Free* (for non-commercial use in the USSR) program for recovering information from hard drives, flash drives, memory cards and other media. The program supports all the most popular file systems: NTFS, FAT and exFAT.

The program sets the media scanning parameters independently (which is also another plus for beginners).

Program features:

• recovery of accidentally deleted files;
• the ability to reconstruct damaged file systems;
• recovering files after formatting the media;
• data recovery using signatures.

EasyRecovery

One of the best data recovery programs, supports a wide variety of media types. The program works in all versions of new Windows: 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits), supports Russian language.

One cannot fail to note one of the most important advantages of the program - the high degree of detection of deleted files. Everything that can be “pulled out” from a disk or flash drive will be presented to you and offered to be restored.

Perhaps the only negative is that it is paid...

R-STUDIO

One of the most popular programs for data recovery, both in our country and abroad. A large number of different media are supported: hard drives (HDD), solid-state drives (SSD), memory cards, flash drives, etc. The list of supported file systems is also amazing: NTFS, NTFS5, ReFS, FAT12/16/32, exFAT, etc.

The program will help in the following cases:

• accidentally deleting a file from the trash (this happens sometimes...);
• formatting the hard drive;
• virus attack;
• in the event of a computer power failure (especially important in Russia with its “reliable” power grids);
• in case of errors on the hard drive, if there are a large number of bad sectors;
• if the structure of the hard drive is damaged (or changed).

In general, a universal harvester for all kinds of cases. The only negative is that the program is paid.

This concludes the report. Good work and good luck everyone!

It is not always possible to format a flash drive using the utilities built into Windows. If you have already tried all the methods available in the system, it’s time to consider programs for formatting a flash drive... unfortunately, if standard methods do not help, saving data from such media is much more difficult!

We will try to consider the most popular and universal utilities for working with flash drives or memory cards. Almost every manufacturer has its own proprietary utility for working with external drives - we won’t focus on them. There are paid applications - I deliberately do not include them in the review; there are enough free alternatives.

Important! Before formatting the flash drive, copy all its contents to your computer. All data on a formatted device will be permanently deleted

I am writing a note based on my professional experience and I could be wrong with this selection, but I can confidently say that the utilities listed here are widely used by specialists when working with flash drives (and not only).

Probably for the first time, I will not direct you to the official website, but will load all the program distributions into the note itself - some official resources are not available... and the rest are presented only in English - but you can always Google it if you need it!

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - formatting utility

If you need to format a problematic SD card or a regular flash drive, then you definitely need to first test the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool program - anyone will tell you that this is the No. 1 program for its purposes without exaggeration. So, download the archive with the program (total 500 kilobytes)

Unpack the archive to any location convenient for you and run the program as administrator (otherwise it won't work)... as usual, right-click and select “Run as administrator” from the menu!

I like the HP USB Storage Format Tool for its simplicity - just a couple of buttons are enough to format almost any flash drive! In the “Device” drop-down menu, select your drive. In “File system”, select the file system (FAT32 or NTFS)… set the volume label and, if desired, check the “Quick Format” box and click Start…

...after formatting you will receive a report on the process as in my picture below - this means that the flash drive is formatted and can be removed.

Quite often, flash drives lose read or write speed over time - this can be easily solved! Just try formatting your drive and loading your data onto it again - verified!

HDD Low Level Format Tool - low-level formatting

We actively used the HDD LLFT utility to revive client hard drives. Quite often, bad sectors were corrected by low-level formatting the drive - this is not fast, but it allows you to save on buying a new hard drive.

During the work, it turned out that this program perfectly supports not only classic hard drives, but also various memory cards and USB flash drives that are familiar to us all.

Not long ago I received a letter:

My external hard drive is not detected correctly in the system - when connected, a notification appears about the need to format the drive. I formatted it on another computer and found a lot of bad sectors... is there a way to somehow “correctly” format my hard drive?

Of course you can - all this applies to flash drives. A request to format it is not that uncommon and probably occurs more often than on a HDD. The free version is also suitable for us. The only differences from the paid version are the speed of operation (180 GB per hour)

When you first start, select our flash drive in the list of devices and click “Continue” (in my case it is a flash drive from SONY)

Go to the “LOW-LEVEL FORMAT” tab and click FORMAT THIS DEVICE

Important! After low-level formatting of a flash drive, it is almost impossible to recover information from it, even in specialized companies (not to mention publicly available programs for recovering deleted files)

You do understand that by clicking the “Yes” button you will destroy all the data on the flash drive?...

...and wait for the data erasure process to complete. After completion, the progress bar will turn yellow - this means that formatting is complete!

Please note that after formatting the HDD LLFT, you need to re-create the partition on the flash drive through disk management or simply by running it again through the HP USB DISK STORAGE FORMAT TOOL - otherwise you will not see your drive in Windows Explorer.

USB Disk Storage Format Tool

I looked at what my colleagues wrote about formatting external devices - the USB Disk Storage Format Tool utility is in the top of most resources. This is what the developers stated (by the way, their official website was unavailable at the time of writing):

• Allows you to format flash drives where standard methods did not help
• Checking and fixing Bad Blocks
• Low-level formatting of flash drives and other goodies

What did I actually get?

Unfortunately, on my Windows 10, the program was unable to format even a known-good flash drive... the worst thing is that when I selected a disk in the list, when I pressed the “Format Disk” button, it tried to format - this is really scary!

I did not have the opportunity to test the program on Windows 7 or earlier OS. I cannot recommend a utility that does not work on the current version of Windows. However, I’ll post it anyway - what if the program was really relevant before, and the inaccessibility of the official website does not give you the opportunity to download it without problems...

Standard password: itshnegcom

I noticed that without assigning a label, the program does not even try to format the flash drive.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that when you exit the program, it tries to force you to install third-party software and constantly asks you to buy the full version... in general, the IT blog does not recommend it!

Results

Now you know the key programs for formatting a flash drive. As I already said, some manufacturers of USB drives have proprietary utilities - if nothing from this note suits you, then you should not ignore them... the most popular JetFlash Recovery Tool works with A-DATA and Transcend drives (but you can experiment on another) and Kingston USB Format Tool you know for whom.

If the flash drive is write-protected for reasons unknown to you... then most likely it has simply exhausted its resource. I couldn’t find this confirmation anywhere, but after talking with familiar specialists, we agreed that when the recording resource is exhausted, the drive simply switches to “Read Only” mode.

To completely clear a partition or connected external storage device of files, a procedure such as formatting is very often used. Beginner users sometimes confuse it with deletion, but they are not the same thing. Formatting involves bringing the logical structure of a disk to a certain order, without which recording, storing and deleting data is impossible. During the formatting process, the file structure of the media is recreated, the MFT table containing information about the files is reset, whereas with a normal deletion or even a shredder using multiple rewrites, nothing like this happens.

What is low-level formatting and how does it differ from regular formatting?

Formatting can be fast or slow, and there is also high-level and low-level formatting. This last one will be discussed today. To be fair, it should be noted that the concept of low-level formatting today is somewhat distorted. Previously, it meant dividing a disk into tracks and sectors, as well as applying special electronic marks called servo marks to the magnetic surface. All this is done exclusively on special factory equipment (servowriter).

The first HDDs were imperfect; they expanded under the influence of temperatures, which caused the sectors to shift relative to the read heads. For this reason, they needed to repeat the servo marking procedure. In new disks, thermal expansion is compensated by recalibrating the parameters of the disk heads at the software level, and the servo marks themselves are applied once. Only such hardware formatting is most correctly called low-level, however, over time, the concept has also extended to software formatting.

Today, low-level formatting is understood as the irreversible destruction of all data on the storage medium, including part of the service information by sequentially overwriting all sectors with zeros. What is now called common is quick formatting, in which only the MFT table is cleared, while the data itself physically remains on the disk. Low-level, or better yet pseudo-low-level formatting of a hard drive solves the following problems:

• Deleting all user data before selling your computer or media.
• Removing some types of boot viruses (bootkits).
• High-quality disk cleaning before reinstalling the operating system.
• Correction of logical errors, treatment of bad sectors, provided that their appearance is not caused by wear and tear of the media or its breakdown.
• Disk prevention, bringing its logical structure to proper condition.

Features of formatting a hard drive and flash drive

From a technical point of view, there is a slight difference between formatting HDD and flash-based media, but for the user this does not matter much. Regular or low-level formatting of a flash drive is performed with the same software tools that are used to format conventional hard drives. Exceptions are cases when a flash drive cannot be formatted using standard tools or even third-party programs, which will be discussed briefly below.

If a flash drive is defined as a device with zero capacity or as an unknown device and produces read/write errors that cannot be corrected in other ways, it is recommended to use special proprietary utilities to format it, which can usually be downloaded directly from the official website of the flash device manufacturer. All of the above is also true for low-level formatting of SD cards.

The best programs for low-level formatting

In principle, such formatting can be done using Windows itself by running the utility on the command line Diskpart and running the command for the selected drive clean all, but it is still better to use special programs for these purposes.

Perhaps the most famous program for low-level formatting of HDD/SSD hard drives, flash drives and memory cards. The utility is free, lightweight, has a simple interface, and supports SATA, IDE, SCSI, USB and Firewire. Additionally, the program supports Ultra-DMA mode, viewing disk information and S.M.A.R.T data. During the HDD formatting process, Low Level Format Tool completely destroys all data on the disk, including the MBR and the contents of the partition table, filling each sector or memory cell with zeros.

The utility is easy to use. After connecting the problematic media to the computer, you need to select it in the program window and click the “Continue” button. In the next window, you need to switch to the “Low-Level Format” tab and click “Format This Device”.

The low-level formatting process will start. As you go, you will be able to monitor the progress: how many sectors have been processed, what percentage is left until the operation is completed, and also at what speed it is performed. After formatting, the disks become uninitialized.

SeaTools for DOS and SeaTools for Windows

You can completely clean a disk or flash drive using the SeaTools diagnostic tool. The program is designed for Seagate drives, but can also work with drives from other manufacturers. The application supports working with SATA, USB, 1394, PATA, IDE and SCSI interfaces, performing a structural check of the media, testing the controller and system memory. Formatting acts as an additional function.

To clean a disk or flash drive, in the SeaTools menu you need to select Advanced – Full Erase, after which low-level formatting will begin, during which all sectors will be overwritten with zeros.

SeaTools is distributed in two editions: For DOS and For Windows. Unlike the second, which is a desktop application, the first edition is a bootable ISO image. Both versions support the Russian language, but by default the program interface is English.

Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics

Another proprietary diagnostic tool that allows you to efficiently format digital media.

The program supports reading S.M.A.R.T. readings, viewing detailed information about connected media. Using it as a shredder is very simple. Double-click on the media selected in the utility window, click “Erase”, and then “Start”.

As a result, all sectors of the disk will be filled with zeros, that is, it has been low-level formatted.

Good day!

In some cases, you have to perform low-level formatting of the hard drive (for example, to “heal” bad sectors of the HDD, or to completely delete all information from the drive, for example, you are selling a computer and don’t want anyone to dig into your data).

Sometimes, such a procedure works “miracles” and helps bring a disk (or, for example, a flash drive, etc.) back to life. In this article I want to look at some issues that every user who has had to deal with a similar issue faces. So…

1) What utility is needed for low-level HDD formatting?

Despite the fact that there are quite a lot of utilities of this kind, including specialized utilities from the disk manufacturer, I recommend using one of the best of its kind - .

HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool

Main program window

This program easily and simply performs low-level formatting of HDD drives and Flash cards. What’s captivating is that even completely novice users can use it. The program is paid, but there is also a free version with limited functionality: maximum operating speed is 50 MB/s.

Note: For example, for one of my “test” hard drives of 500 GB, it took about 2 hours to carry out low-level formatting (this is in the free version of the program). Moreover, the speed sometimes dropped significantly less than 50 MB/s.

Main features:

• supports work with SATA, IDE, SCSI, USB, Firewire interfaces;
• Supports drives from: Hitachi, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, Western Digital, etc.
• supports formatting Flash cards when using a card reader.

When formatting, the data on the drive will be completely destroyed! The utility supports working with drives connected via USB and Firewire (i.e., you can format and bring back to life even ordinary USB flash drives).

Low-level formatting will delete the MBR and partition table (no program will help you recover data, be careful!).

2) When to perform low-level formatting, what will help

Most often, such formatting is carried out for the following reasons:

1. The most common reason is to get rid of and treat the disk from bad blocks (bad and unreadable), which significantly impair the performance of the hard drive. Low-level formatting allows you to “instruct” the hard drive so that it can discard bad sectors (bad blocks), replacing their work with backup ones. This significantly improves the performance of the disk (SATA, IDE) and increases the life of such a device.
2. When they want to get rid of viruses, malware that cannot be removed by other methods (such, unfortunately, do occur);
3. When they sell a computer (laptop) and don’t want the new owner to rummage through their data;
4. In some cases, this needs to be done when you “transfer” from a Linux system to Windows;
5. When a flash drive (for example) is not visible in any other program, and it is impossible to write files to it (and indeed, format it using Windows);
6. When a new drive is connected, etc.

3) An example of low-level formatting of a flash drive under Windows

A few important notes:

1. The hard drive is formatted in the same way as the flash drive shown in the example.
2. By the way, the flash drive is the most common one, made in China. Reason for formatting: it is no longer recognized and displayed on my computer. However, the HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool saw it and decided to try to save it.
3. Low-level formatting can be done both under Windows and Dos. Many novice users make one mistake, its essence is simple: you cannot format the disk from which you booted! Those. if you have one hard drive and Windows is installed on it (like most) - then to start formatting this disk, you need to boot from another medium, for example from (or a computer and format it from it).

Now let's move on to the process itself. I will assume that you have already downloaded and installed the HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool utility.

1. When you launch the utility, you will see a window with a welcome message and the price of the program. The free version is distinguished by its speed, so if you do not have a very large disk and there are not very many of them, then the free version is quite enough for the work - just click the “Continue for free” button (continue for free).

First launch of HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool

2. Next you will see in the list all the drives connected and found by the utility. Please note that there will no longer be the usual “C:\” drives, etc. Here you need to focus on the device model and drive size.

For further formatting, select the desired device from the list and click the “Continue” button (as in the screenshot below).

Selecting a drive

3. Next, a window with information about the drives should appear in front of you. Here you can find out the S.M.A.R.T. readings, find out more detailed information about the device (Device details), and perform formatting - LOW-LEVE FORMAT tab. That's what we choose.

To start formatting, click the Format This Device button.

Note. If you check the box next to Perform quick wipe, “normal” formatting will be performed instead of low-level formatting.

Low-Level Format (format the device).

4. Then a standard warning will appear stating that all data will be deleted, check the drive again, perhaps the necessary data remains on it. If all backup copies of documents from it have been made, you can safely proceed...

5. The formatting process itself should begin. At this time, you cannot remove the flash drive (or disconnect the disk), write to it (or rather, try to write), and generally do not run any resource-intensive applications on the computer; it is better to leave it alone until the operation is completed. When it is completed, the green bar will reach the end and turn yellow. After this, you can close the utility.

By the way, the operation time depends on your version of the utility (paid / free), as well as on the state of the drive itself. If there are a lot of errors on the disk, sectors are not readable, then the formatting speed will be low and you will have to wait quite a long time...

Formatting process...

Formatting complete

By the way, the easiest way to do high-level formatting is to simply go to “my computer” and right-click on the desired disk (if it is visible, of course). In particular, my flash drive became visible after the “operation” was performed...

Next, all that remains is to select the file system ( for example NTFS, since it supports files larger than 4 GB), write the disk name ( volume label: Flash drive, see screenshot below) and start formatting.

After the operation has been completed, you can start using the drive as usual, so to speak, “from scratch”...

That's all for me, Good Luck :)

Good day.

Questions regarding the operation of the hard drive ( or as they say HDD) - always a lot (probably one of the most numerous directions). Quite often, in order to solve this or that issue, the hard drive needs to be formatted. And here, some questions are superimposed on others: “And how? And with what? This program does not see the disk, which one should I replace it with?” etc.

In this article I will present the best (in my opinion) programs that help cope with this task.

Important! Before formatting the HDD with one of the presented programs, save all important information from the hard drive to other media. During the formatting process, all data from the media will be deleted and it is sometimes extremely difficult to restore something (and sometimes even impossible!).

"Tools" for working with hard drives

Acronis Disk Director

In my opinion, this is one of the best programs for working with a hard drive. Firstly, there is support for the Russian language (for many users this is fundamental), secondly, it supports all Windows operating systems: XP, 7, 8, 10, thirdly, the program has excellent compatibility and “sees” all disks (unlike from other utilities of this kind).

Judge for yourself, you can do “anything” with hard disk partitions:

• format (in fact, for this reason the program was included in the article);
• change the file system without data loss (for example, from Fat 32 to Ntfs);
• resize partition: very convenient if, when installing Windows, you, say, allocated too little space for the system disk, and now you need to increase it from 50 GB to 100 GB. You can format the disk again - but you will lose all the information, and with the help of this function you can change the size and save all the data;
• combining hard disk partitions: for example, we divided the hard drive into 3 partitions, and then thought, why? It’s better to have two: one system one for Windows, and the other for files - they took it and combined it and didn’t lose anything;
• disk defragmentation: useful if you have a Fat 32 file system (with Ntfs - there's not much point, at least you won't gain in performance);
• change drive letter;
• deleting partitions;
• viewing files on disk: useful when you have a file on your disk that is not deleted;
• ability to create bootable media: flash drives (the tool will simply save you if Windows refuses to boot).

In general, it is probably unrealistic to describe all the functions in one article. The only drawback of the program is that it is paid, although there is time for a test...

Paragon partition manager

This program is quite well known, I think that experienced users have been familiar with it for a long time. Includes all the most necessary tools for working with media. By the way, the program supports not only real physical disks, but also virtual ones.

Main features:

• Using disks larger than 2 TB in Windows XP (with this software you can use larger capacity disks in the old OS);
• Ability to control boot of multiple operating systems Windows (very important when you want to install another Windows OS in addition to your first one. For example, to test a new OS before finally switching to it);
• Easy and intuitive work with sections: You can easily split or merge the required partition without losing data. In this sense, the program works without any complaints at all ( By the way, it is possible to convert a basic MBR to a GPT disk. Regarding this task, there have been a lot of questions lately. );
• Support for a large number of file systems- this means that you can view and work with partitions of almost any hard drive;
• Working with virtual disks: easily connects a disk to itself and allows you to work with it as with a real disk;
• Huge number of backup functions and restoration (also very important), etc.

EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition

An excellent free (by the way, there is also a paid version - it has several additional functions) tool for working with hard drives. Supported OS Windows: 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits), there is support for the Russian language.

The number of functions is simply amazing, I will list some of them:

• support for different types of media: HDD, SSD, USB flash drives, memory cards, etc.;
• changing hard disk partitions: formatting, resizing, merging, deleting, etc.;
• support for MBR and GPT disks, support for RAID arrays;
• support for disks up to 8 TB;
• the ability to migrate from HDD to SSD (however, not all versions of the program support);
• the ability to create bootable media, etc.

In general, a good alternative to the paid products presented above. Even the features of the free version are enough for most users.

Aomei Partition Assistant

Another worthy alternative to paid products. The standard version (and it is free) has a bunch of functions for working with hard drives, supports Windows 7, 8, 10, and has the Russian language (although it is not installed by default). By the way, according to the developers, they use special algorithms to work with “problem” disks - so there is a chance that your “invisible” disk in any software will suddenly be seen by Aomei Partition Assistant...

Key Features:

• One of the lowest system requirements (among software of this type): processor with a clock frequency of 500 MHz, 400 MB of hard disk space;
• Supports traditional HDD hard drives, as well as newfangled solid-state SSDs and SSHDs;
• Full support for RAID arrays;
• Full support for working with HDD partitions: merging, splitting, formatting, changing the file system, etc.;
• Support for MBR and GPT disks up to 16 TB in size;
• Supports up to 128 disks in the system;
• Support for flash drives, memory cards, etc.;
• Support for virtual disks (for example, from programs such as VMware, Virtual Box, etc.);
• Full support for all the most popular file systems: NTFS, FAT32/FAT16/FAT12, exFAT/ReFS, Ext2/Ext3/Ext4.

MiniTool Partition Wizard

MiniTool Partition Wizard is free software for working with hard drives. By the way, it’s not at all bad, which only indicates that over 16 million users use this utility in the world!

Peculiarities:

• Full support for the following OS: Windows 10, Windows 8.1/7/Vista/XP 32-bit and 64-bit;
• Ability to resize partitions, create new partitions, format them, clone, etc.;
• Convert between MBR and GPT disks (without data loss);
• Supports conversion from one file system to another: we are talking about FAT/FAT32 and NTFS (without data loss);
• Backup and recovery of information on disk;
• Optimizing Windows for optimal performance and migration to an SSD drive (relevant for those who are replacing their old HDD with a newfangled and fast SSD), etc.;

HDD Low Level Format Tool

This utility does not do much of what the programs listed above can do. In general, it can only do one thing - format the media (disk or flash drive). But it was impossible not to include it in this review...

The fact is that the utility performs low-level formatting of the disk. In some cases, restoring the functionality of a hard drive without this operation is almost impossible! Therefore, if no program sees your disk, try HDD Low Level Format Tool. It also helps to delete ALL information from the disk without the possibility of recovery (for example, you do not want someone to be able to restore your files on a sold computer).

In general, I have a separate article about this utility on my blog (which describes all these “subtleties”):

PS

About 10 years ago, by the way, one program was very popular - Partition Magic (it allowed you to format the HDD, split the disk into partitions, etc.). In principle, you can still use it today - only the developers have stopped supporting it and it is not suitable for Windows XP, Vista and higher. On the one hand, it’s a pity when they stop supporting such convenient software...

That's all, good choice!