One of the most common ways to expand a computer’s or mobile device’s storage capacity is with flash drive technology. Flash drives, memory sticks, pen drives, and USB sticks are just a few names for these tiny, portable storage devices. Data security is of the utmost importance to millions of users who depend on portable storage devices like USB flash drives.
Unfortunately, flash drives are just as prone to data loss as any other storage technology. You can use some flash drive recovery methods. This article will review the best practices for retrieving data from a USB flash drive.
Why Do You Encounter Data Loss on USB Drives?
Information on a portable storage device known as a USB flash drive can become corrupted or lost due to several factors. For a quick refresher, here are they:
- Lost or accidentally deleted from the USB drive
- The gadget became corrupted, broken, or damaged
- Data loss occurred due to virus attacks and an infected USB drive
- Performing a format error on a USB drive by accident
- The files stored on your USB flash drive are inaccessible
- Take out the USB flash drive the wrong way
- While the data was still transferring, remove the flash drive
Methods for Retrieving Lost Data from USB Drives
For flash drive recovery, you can use some manual methods. After you follow these various steps, you can recover lost data from a USB drive without spending a dime or installing any software. Now, let’s take a look at them.
Method 1: USB Drive File Recovery with CMD
The Command Prompt in Windows provides two built-in commands, chkdsk, and ATTRIB, that users can try to use to recover files from flash drives. Follow these steps for USB data recovery using CMD:
Step 1: Type “CMD” into the dialogue box after clicking the Start button on your Windows PC, typically located in the bottom left corner of your screen. Type “Enter” before proceeding.
Step 2: When the prompt for entering commands appears, enter ‘chkdsk C: /f’.
Step 3: In this case, C is the drive you wish to scan. Allow the CHKDSK scanning process to finish by pressing enter.
Step 4: Enter the following command to perform the ATTRIB scan after completing the CHKDSK scan: “ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D C:*.*.”
Step 5: Locate your USB flash drive and open it in File Explorer. You should be able to access all your lost files as usual, and they should be right there.
Method 2: Previous Versions to Recover USB Deleted Files
Users can restore lost data from a USB drive using Windows’ built-in Restore a previous version feature, eliminating the need for third-party software. Here are the steps for USB data recovery:
Step 1: Get your broken USB drive connected to a computer.
Step 2: Before you lose all of your data, find the folder where you saved it.
Step 3: To access the context menu, right-click on the folder in question. Find the option to Restore an earlier version.
Step 4: A new menu with drop-down options will appear. Click Restore after you’ve chosen the necessary previous version.
Step 5: To continue with the recovery, click OK. After a brief interval, you will receive an alert confirming the successful restoration of your erased files
Method 3: Find a Data Recovery Service to Help
Home repairs for physically damaged external storage devices can be tempting, but you should know that you risk doing more harm than good if you try to fix them on your own. When this happens, it’s best to hire a data recovery service for flash drive data recovery:
Step 1: Look into data recovery services online and pick one that you can trust.
Step 2: Contact them to learn more about the service’s recovery procedure, turnaround time, and cost.
Step 3: Follow the service’s instructions on how to send the damaged USB drive.
Step 4: Keep patient; the time it takes to finish data recovery will depend on how bad the damage is.
Evaluate the restored data; if everything is satisfactory, you can get the files in the preferred format. You can also use disk drill data recovery.
Use Advanced File Recovery
The Windows program Advanced File Recovery lives up to its name by helping users recover deleted files. With its help, you can retrieve files you accidentally deleted from internal and external drives.
If you’ve ever lost a crucial audio file, document, or media file due to an accident, Advanced File Recovery can assist you in retrieving it. It can handle data loss scenarios such as system crashes, virus attacks, reformatting, etc. It is the best tool for flash drive recovery.
Features:
- Rapid and extensive scan
- Access data from a wide range of devices
- View working files before recovering them
- Potential resolutions to various problems with data loss
How Does it Work on Windows?
Now that you have a basic understanding of Advanced File Recovery. Here is the process to follow for flash drive recovery:
Step 1: Obtain Advanced File Recovery, run it, and install it on your Windows machine.
Step 2: Retrieve deleted files by scanning a predefined region.
Step 3: Quick Scan and Deep Scan are the scanning modes to choose from. Quick Scan looks for files you recently deleted, whereas Deep Scan scans your hard drive.
Step 4: Click on the “Next” button.
Step 5: First, select the file type you want to recover.
Step 6: Select the blue Start Scan button in the screen’s lower right corner to initiate the scanning process. The next step is to complete the Scan.
Step 7: Depending on the type of Scan you choose, a list of recoverable files should now appear. You can always choose to preview the files before restoring them.
Step 8: Click the Recover Now button on the bottom right of the screen after you’ve selected the file to restore.
Conclusion
It would help if you did not assume there is no way to recover crucial files simply because you lost them. Here, we have outlined the best flash drive data recovery ways; now it’s your turn to come to the rescue by following our directions.