How to Recover Formatted USB Flash Drive (2024)

Did you mistakenly format a USB drive that contained important data you forgot to back up? Before you mourn the loss of your data, there’s still a chance that you can get it back, permitted all the conditions are right.

Before we dive into the steps needed to recover data from a USB that has been formatted, let’s first look at how the type of format you performed could impact your data and what precautions you should take following data loss.

What Are the Consequences of Formatting USB with the Data on It?

Formatting is the process of creating a partition on your drive and giving it a file system that can be used to store data. This process is inherently destructive to your data and is guaranteed to delete it. But, this isn’t to say that your data is gone for good. There are two types of formats to be aware of – quick, and full. Your ability to recover deleted files from a flash drive that has been formatted is heavily influenced by which one you performed.

Here is a brief explanation of each type of formatting:

• Quick format - A quick format will write a new file system to the drive, deleting the previous file system’s metadata. Records from the previous file system may still remain, which can be used to restore the data. You can also recover data by file signature.
• Full format - A full format will overwrite each sector of the partition with zeros. In addition to deleting the data, the act of overwriting the existing data with zeros causes recovery to become extremely unlikely.

There are few circ*mstances where a full format is necessary, so a quick format is usually the preferred option in most cases. You may want to perform a full format if you’re selling a drive and want to make sure your data isn’t recoverable, or locate and mark bad sectors so they’re not used to store data.

Immediate Actions Post-Formatting

Following data loss caused by formatting your USB flash drive, the next steps you take play a critical role in preserving the data for recovery. There are three important actions you must take once you’re aware that data loss has occurred:

1. Stop using the USB drive. It’s important that you stop using the drive immediately, as any further data that’s written to the flash drive puts your existing data at risk of being permanently overwritten.
2. Back up the USB drive. To safeguard the lost data and prevent it from being lost while attempting to recover it, creating a byte-to-byte copy of the USB flash drive will ensure you always have a chance at trying again.
3. Choose a recovery solution. Of the many data recovery tools available online, you must choose one that specializes in recovering data that has become lost due to formatting.

Free data recovery software tools, like Recuva and PhotoRec, are always an option. However, bear in mind that free tools aren’t always the best option for all data loss situations. For example, PhotoRec only supports signature-based scanning, ignoring any information left by the file system, and Recuva receives little attention from its developers, causing its scanning algorithms to fall short in comparison to professional data recovery solutions.

How to Recover Formatted USB Data

If you need to recover data from a flash drive, Disk Drill is a good option. It’s a professional data recovery tool that proves to be a very reliable option in situations like this, as it not only offers great support for file systems used by USB flash drives (FAT32, exFAT, etc.) but also recognizes many modern file formats, allowing for effective signature-based recovery and increasing your overall likelihood of recovering more data. Windows users have the added benefit of being able to recover deleted files from a USB drive for free if the data that’s being recovered is below 500 MB.

We’ll demonstrate how to use Disk Drill on Windows 11, but the steps will be the same if you’re using Windows 10 or prior, as well as macOS:

1. Download and install Disk Drill: Once you have it downloaded, open it.

2. Connect your USB drive and scan it: Once the USB flash drive is connected, select it from the list of devices and click Search for lost data. Optionally, you can create a byte-to-byte image with the Drive Backup feature and then scan that, as we did.

3. Review the data that was found: Once the scan is complete, you can click Review found items to explore what files Disk Drill found. Alternatively, you can recover everything straight away by clicking Recover all.

4. Select the files you want to recover: Choose what data you want to recover by checking the box next to each file. Seeing as the data was deleted during the format, you’re likely going to find it in the Deleted or lost dropdown, but some may also reside in the Reconstructed section. It’s at this stage that you can also preview your files beforehand to make sure they’re intact for recovery. When you’re ready, click Recover.

5. Choose a destination: Your last step is to choose where you want to send the recovered files. To avoid overwriting the data, avoid writing it back to the same USB flash drive you’re recovering it from.

When to Consider Professional Recovery Services

Data recovery software is intended to be a DIY approach. There are times when it won’t be enough to recover your data. It may prove too challenging to do on your own, or you may face a situation where your USB drive has faced physical damage in which performing recovery on your own poses a greater risk.

In times like this, you should use a professional data recovery service to restore deleted files from the USB drive. Although it is the costliest option, it gives you the best chance of recovering what data remains on the drive. Data recovery professionals work in a cleanroom environment using industry-grade technology to carefully extract your data. Additionally, they’re equipped with the expertise necessary to navigate the risks of data loss and prevent further damage to your data.

How to Evaluate Data Recovery Chances of the Formatted USB Drive

There are some common misconceptions floating around the net regarding USB formatting and data recovery. Some of them are quite minor, while others may lead to harm if believed. We’ve collected and corrected some of them to help you form more realistic expectations.

• “Data is permanently lost after formatting” - This is rarely the case unless you’re talking about a full format specifically. Following a quick format, the data will still remain at the physical location. The sector where it’s stored will instead be marked as available, allowing your operating system to store data there. Once new data overwrites the old data, it’s considered unrecoverable. Contrarily, a full format will overwrite each sector with zeros, making recovery almost impossible.
• “Data recovery software can retrieve everything” - Data recovery software should not be considered a replacement for backing up your data, as there’s never a guarantee that your data is recoverable. Instead, it should be used as an emergency measure if the data that you’re recovering was not backed up in time.
• “Professional recovery is unnecessary for USB drives” - If recovering the contents of your USB drive is the highest priority, a professional recovery service gives you the best chance of getting that data back, as they’re equipped with the means of addressing severe cases of data loss that involve physical damage or complex data corruption.
• “Frequent formatting increases drive efficiency” - In general, formatting a drive on a regular basis does not increase drive efficiency. In the context of USB flash drives, frequent formatting is actually a bad thing. As USB drives use a form of flash memory, the cells used to store the data have a finite number of times they can be used (similar to SSDs). Therefore, unnecessary formatting will shorten its lifespan and provide no benefits.
• “USB data recovery is always safe” - Any recovery process that involves writing data to the affected drive increases the chance that some of the data you’re trying to recover will be overwritten. For this reason, it’s best to back the drive up and recover the data in a controlled environment where you can copy it to a separate physical drive. Some recovery tools outright refuse to share the same drive for the source and destination locations, such as Windows File Recovery.

Data loss is an unfortunate risk that threatens every type of storage device. The best way to stay prepared is to back up your data. While keeping a copy of your data on a separate disk is a great start, one of the best ways of keeping your data safe is by following the 3-2-1 backup strategy. This involves keeping three backups, stored on two different types of storage media, with one residing off-site.

Formatted USB File Recovery FAQs:

Can I recover formatted files from a pen drive without using software?

The only way to recover deleted files from a USB without software is by restoring them from a backup. There’s no way to reverse a format, so once a USB pen drive has been formatted, there’s no way to recover anything without using some form of data recovery software.

I formatted my USB drive a long time ago, is data recovery still possible?

Yes, but your chances of success will be decreased, severely so if you’ve been actively using it since then. Either way, you can try your luck by using a data recovery tool to recover deleted files from a USB that was formatted.

Does the file type (photos, documents, etc.) affect the recoverability of formatted data?

Only in instances where you’re trying to recover data from the pen drive by file signature. In that case, the data recovery tool you’re using must recognize the file format, in addition to offering good odds of recovering it.

Can I recover formatted data on a USB drive using the Command Prompt?

Command Prompt on its own will not be able to recover data that was lost after you formatted your USB drive. You can, however, use the data recovery tool Windows File Recovery. This is Microsoft’s official data recovery tool that runs using a command-line interface (CLI).

What if the data recovery software doesn't find any files?

Your next step would be to approach a professional data recovery service if you’re willing to try every possible avenue. A data recovery professional has the expertise and equipment necessary to go beyond what’s offered by data recovery software when you need to recover data from a thumb drive.