Phenquestions
If you're faced with the problem that your SD card or USB drive suddenly shows as unallocated in Disk Management or even stops working on your Windows 10 PC, then this post is intended to help you. In this post, we will identify the possible causes of this error and also present the solutions you can try to help redress the unallocated space error on your USB drive or SD card.
Unallocated space is an error that occurs because of incorrect deletion of files and virus attacks. For example, you may accidentally have deleted the partition on the USB or SD card or some malicious program does this for you. The unallocated space could also occur after trying to burn a system to the USB drive. Some operating systems, such as Chrome OS and Linux, will change the partition system of your removable device, so there will be little free space on your USB drive. Using some third party software inappropriately or unsuccessful formatting may also cause an inaccessible portion on your USB drive or SD card, which is shown as unallocated space.
Unallocated Space error on USB drive or SD card
If you're faced with the Unallocated Space on USB drive or SD card issue, you can try our recommended solutions below in no particular order and see if that helps to resolve the issue.
- Use Disk Management
- Use HPUSBDisk tool
- Use DiskPart
Let's take a look at the description of the process involved in relation to each of the listed solutions.
1] Use Disk Management
To use Disk Management to resolve the Unallocated Space on USB drive or SD card error, do the following:
- Press Windows key + X to open Power User Menu.
- Press K on the keyboard to open Disk Management.
- On the center screen of the window, look for your USB disk. It should be Disk 1.
- If your USB drive shows a black ribbon on top then right-click on it and select New Simple Volume.
- Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process.
Afterward, check to see if the issue is resolved. If not continue with the next solution.
2] Use HPUSBDisk tool
Using Disk Management as described above might not work for every corrupted USB. In which case, you should try to format it with HPUSBDisk tool. It is a very powerful tool for fixing corrupted USBs.
To use this tool to attempt to fix the Unallocated Space on USB drive or SD card error, do the following:
- Download the HP USB Disk format tool.
- Right-click on the downloaded tool and select Run as Administrator.
- Select your USB or SD card and click on Start.
If the operation completes and the error is still unresolved, try the next solution.
3] Use DiskPart
To use DiskPart to reclaim the Unallocated Space on USB drive or SD card, do the following:
Before you get started, back up data because incorrect operations with DiskPart may cause permanent data loss.
- Plug in the USB drive or SD card you are having the problem with to your computer.
- Press Windows key + R.
- In the Run dialog box type diskpart and press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER key combo to open DiskPart in Command Prompt elevated/admin mode.
- Now. type list disk and hit Enter.
- Next, type Select disk 1 (this number should belong to your disk) and hit Enter.
- Next, type clean and hit Enter to delete all volumes and partitions on the selected disk, which is the USB drive or SD card.
- Now type create partition primary and hit Enter to create a primary partition.
If you want to create more than one partition on the USB drive, you can specify the partition size referring to the following syntax:
create partition primary [size=n]
For example, to create a 3000MB partition, run the command below:
create partition primary size=3000
Once you have successfully created the partition, you can easily format unallocated space on the USB drive or SD card.
When done, you can check to see if the issue is resolved.
Hope this helps!
