Replace number x with the number of the disk you want to clear, then press Enter to run the command. However, be sure to check the specs of any drive to see the types of media it plays. Simply connect one to your computer through an available USB slot, wait for the installer to finish, and you’re ready to go. You can select and format at the disk using the following command: External drives are affordable and plug-and-play ready. Now you have a list of disks, you can select the one you want to format and partition.

Choose a Disk and Clear Data Using Clear-Disk If you decide you want to convert your GPT disk to an MBR, check out our MBR to GPT no data loss conversion guide.Ģ. It can handle larger drives, more partitions, and is less prone to error. On my tiny example USB flash drive, this doesn't make much difference, but you might want to split a larger drive into small partitions for data management and so on.įor most modern drives, working with modern operating systems, GPT is the way to go.

In short, MBR only allows for four total partitions on the drive, while GPT allows up to 128 partitions. You might have noticed the two different partition styles commonly used for Windows systems: MBR and GPT.

The get-disk command brings up a list of every disk on your computer, along with its name, drive status, total size, and partition type.