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When I enter a USB drive on Windows I if it doesn't have a partition that is recognised by Windows and tools such as Disk Management say "No Media" or File System Unknown.

On Linux I can use tools like fdisk to confirm what kind of file system is present. What options are there to do this on Windows?

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ChrisGuest
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  • Disk Management and `diskpart` should be able to at least show you the size of the partitions on said device. – Seth Jan 24 '17 at 07:57
  • This link might help you further: http://superuser.com/questions/72361/tool-to-determine-filesystem-on-removable-media – jnL Jan 24 '17 at 08:04
  • `fdisk` does not tell you what filesystem is actually used. It just reads a (very generic!) code that indicates the *partition type*. That being said, your USB drive is most likely toast. – Daniel B Jan 24 '17 at 09:06
  • The drive has probably failed - please see https://superuser.com/questions/871850/usb-flash-drive-not-working-or-is-appearing-as-an-empty-disk-drive-disk-managem – bwDraco Aug 31 '17 at 22:40

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Windows has very limited support for file systems.

ext2/3/4 and other Linux file systems are not supported. Only NT based file systems such as FAT, Fat16/32, exFAT, and NTFS.

diskpart and Disk Management can show volume information such as size but nothing else. Third-party programs can be much more helpful.

Web Links:

Tool to determine filesystem on removable media

dark_st3alth
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