Quite often, users are faced with the problem of correctly creating bootable flash drives that can be used to install operating systems or perform actions to restore them if Windows cannot start for some reason. But how to make a bootable flash drive the usual one if the need for such a media has disappeared? The question is quite serious, but it is not worth the time to exaggerate, because to perform the necessary actions you can offer several simple methods available to users of any level of training.
Is it possible to make a regular one from a bootable flash drive?
Making any media normal, if it was bootable before, can be quite elementary. But before performing operations of this type, it is necessary to clearly understand what the principle of using a boot device is. According to many users, the main problem is that on any media in the process of creating a device for starting, instead of the operating system, a special hidden section is created in which the bootloader itself is recorded. At first it works, and only then control is transferred to all those software components that are present on the drive.
Some, however, believe that you can simply delete all those objects that are displayed in the file manager and end there. As it turns out, this is clearly not enough, since the total capacity of the drive as a result will still be less.
How to make a normal USB flash drive if it does not have an explicit partitioning?
To begin with, consider a situation where you do not want to delete the hidden section or do not have the necessary funds at hand. How to make a regular flash drive from a bootable flash drive?
You can simply delete all visible and hidden objects or perform formatting of any type. But there is a snag. The fact is that when you restart or turn on the computer when it is inserted in the port, the device will still be recognized as bootable, but since it does not have the necessary software components to continue working, either an error will appear or the system will continue to start from the hard drive . But you need to restore the full volume! That is why simple formatting is not good.
How to remove partitioning using Windows?
How to make a flash drive normal after boot in this case? Among the Windows tools, it is best to use the command line, because disk management tools are far from the most effective.
Call the console with administrator privileges and first run the diskpart toolkit. After that, determine the number of your flash drive by calling the list with the list disk command and remember the number of the removable device (you can determine the flash drive by volume). After that, select the device (select disk N, where N is the specified number) and clean the drive with the clean command. Next, you will need to recreate the partition (create partition primary), make the entire partition active (active), format the medium (format) and assign it a letter (assign), and then complete the toolkit with the exit command.
Note: when formatting media, you can immediately specify the file system type and formatting option. For example, for quick formatting in NTFS, the command would look like this: format fs = ntfs quick.
Using third-party programs
The above proposed methodology for ordinary users may seem quite complicated and requires certain time costs. Therefore, let's see how to make the usual one from the bootable flash drive a simpler way, using specialized third-party applications for this. Among all that can now be found on the Internet, Rufus and USB Disk Storage Format Tool are best suited.
In the first program, you need to select your device from the list, leave the partition section unchanged, set the type of the file system at the output, and then, in the necessary order, mark the items for quick formatting and creating an extended label, as shown in the image above, and then activate the formatting process.
In the second application, the actions performed by the user are even simpler. You need to install only your preferred file system, and the conversion of a bootable USB flash drive to a regular one will happen automatically.
Finally, to delete partitions, you can also use software products like AOMEI Partition Assistant and first remove the markup and then merge them. But in this situation, this is akin to using disk management in Windows itself, and it can take a little longer than using the similar command-line tools described above.
Epilogue
As for the tips in the end, it’s worth mentioning separately that in the case of formatting with regard to all the described methods, it is not always advisable to use quick cleaning. In some cases, in order to be completely sure that the available volume will be restored, it makes sense to apply full formatting. Of course, this will take much more time, but in the case of errors and bad sectors, it will give a 100% result, even without checking the drives used.