Error
When you try to format
an external hard drive, SD card, USB flash drive or pen drive within Windows
File Explorer, there is a small chance that you will receive an error message:
The format did not complete successfully.

Cause
If the disk that you are having problem formatting is shown as "RAW Format"
in Disk Management, it means that the file system is corrupted or Windows does not
support such filesystem. Some data might store in the partition table. If saving
data is not the case, this problem can be easily fixed.
Microsoft Windows OS supported file systems: FAT (FAT32, FAT16), NTFS, exFAT, and
ReFS (only usable in Windows Server 2012/Windows 8 and later versions of Windows
OS).
Virus affection or bad sectors can also lead to the error disk format did not
complete successfully.
Solution
Check bad sectors
1. Press Windows + R and type “cmd” in the Run window to
open an elevated command prompt.
2. Type the command “chkdsk /f [drive letter]:” For
example, if you are unable to format H: drive, then you should type in “chkdsk H:
/f”

Recreate partition
This method will delete the partition that you are unable to format successfully.
Make sure there are no valuable data in there before following the steps below:
1. Press Windows + R and type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Run box
to open Disk Management.
2. Right-click on the partition that fails to format and
select “Delete Volume”. After that, the partition will become unallocated space.

3. Right click on that Unallocated Space and select “New
Simple Volume”. You can just accept the default values if you do not have other
preference. Since quick format did not work well, this time you can do a full
format.
A full format will take much longer as it will test the entire disk surface. Besides
Disk Management, you can also use DiskPart.exe
to delete partition and remake the partition. This process will likely fix
corrupted bits and allows you to complete the format.
Wipe the entire drive
If you cannot delete the partition with Disk Management or DiskPart.exe, which is a
rare case, you can use third party free
partition software like AOMEI Partition Assistant to wipe out the entire
data disk. This also works for SD memory card or pen drive. If you need to delete or
wipe system hard drive, you need to upgrade
it to Professional version.
1. Download and run this
free software.
2. Right click on the beginning of the disk and select
“Wipe Hard Drive”. Click “Ok” in a pop up window to confirm the operation.

3. Click on the unallocated space to Create Partition. You
can leave the default settings.
4. Click “Apply” to apply all these operations.
If you still met the error the format did not complete successfully, it may suggest
that the disk is physically damaged. You can run a disk surface test to see how bad it is
damaged.