Format EXT4 on Windows 10,8,7 with Best EXT4 Format Freeware

Updated by

Tracy King 

Written by

Jean 

Updated on Apr 28, 2025

Can Windows Format EXT4?

"I'm trying to format an NTFS drive to EXT4, to use it for Linux. The problem is, I find nowhere to format EXT4 in Windows 10 File Explorer and Windows 10 Disk Management. Can Windows format EXT4 or not?"

No, Windows cannot read EX4 partitions nor format a partition to EXT4 format. For Windows, NTFS is the most used file system and also the default one. Besides NTFS, Windows also supports REFS (Now it has been removed from Windows 10 Pro), exFAT, and FAT32. For Mac, it doesn't recognize an EXT4 partition as well. Its default file system is APFS, and the other compatible file systems are HFS+, FAT32, and exFAT.

To be able to format EXT4 in Windows, you'll need to download the best free EXT4 format software called EaseUS Partition Master. Read on to learn more.

How to Format EXT4 in Windows 10/8/7

As aforementioned, both the Windows computer and Mac are unable to utilize a Linux EXT4 partition. You can find no "EXT4" option during the course of formatting a disk there.

But many times, you'll need to format an EXT4 partition on Windows. For example, you decided to use a Windows hard drive on a Linux computer. And the other common case is that you're dual booting Windows and Linux, you need to access files on your Windows system from the Linux environment. How do you format hard drive to EXT4 when the "Format" option is not even available?

Take it easy. A third-party partition manager like EaseUS Partition Master can do you a favor. You can read, create, and format the hard drive partition with the EXT4 file system under its help.

Best EXT4 Format Freeware - EaseUS Partition Master

Whether it's about formatting a Windows-supported NTFS/exFAT/FAT32 to EXT4 or formatting the Linux EXT4 hard drive to a Windows-compatible file system, EaseUS free partition manager software can easily get the job done. It's developed to manage Windows 10, 8,7, XP, Vista, and Windows Server hard drives & partitions in every way, such as adjusting a volume size, deleting partitions, formatting partitions, wiping partitions, merging partitions, etc.

What makes it stand out among rivals and native Windows programs is the 100% support for Linux EXT2, EXT3 as well as the default EXT4 file systems. With EaseUS EXT formatting software, you can manage an EXT2/3/4 drive on Windows in these ways:

• Resize/move an EXT4 partition
• Create an EXT4 partition
• Convert EXT4 to NTFS without data loss
• Format EXT4 to EXT2/3, NTFS, FAT32
• Format NTFS, FAT32, EXT2/3 to EXT4

Yet powerful, using EaseUS EXT4 formatter to format the hard drive is straightforward, with only a few clicks. Only notice that the formatting itself will erase data on the current drive, so make sure that you've copied the important data files to the other drive for a backup. If the hard drive data is huge and the transfer is too slow, use the copy partition function in EaseUS Partition Master to accelerate the data transfer time.

Download EaseUS Partition Master and follow the simple steps to format EXT4 in Windows:

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the partition you intend to format and choose "Format".

Step 2. In the new window, enter the Partition label if you prefer to rename it, choose the FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 file system, and set the cluster size according to your needs, then click "OK".

Step 3. Then you will see a warning window, click "Yes" in it to continue.

Step 4. Click the "Execute 1 Task(s)" button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click "Apply" to start formatting the partition to FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4.

What's the EXT4 File System? 

The EXT4, or fourth extended file system, is a widely used journaling file system for the Linux operating system. EXT4 is a deeper improvement over EXT3 & EXT2, including better performance, reliability, security, and new features. 

EXT4 is commonly adopted by large hard drives by default. It can also be used on removable disks like USB flash drives, pen drives, and memory cards.

Conclusion

On this page, we've learnt what an EXT4 file system is and when do people need to use it. And if you are in the demand of changing file system of a disk drive to EXT4, feel free to take a reliable EXT4 formatter utility for help. EaseUS Partition Master enables all levels of Windows users to convert and change their storage devices to any desired format, and EXT4 is included and supported.

If you need an efficient tool, feel free to take EaseUS Partition Master to change your device file system format for free here.