How to Unformat USB Flash Drive & Get Your Data Back

If you have ever formatted your USB flash drive by accident or incorrectly formatted it to the wrong file system, then you know the panic that sets in. All of your data is suddenly gone, you have no idea how to get it back, and in the worst case, your drive becomes unusable.

Do You Really Need to Unformat a Flash Drive?

In this section, we will talk about some common problems that can occur to your USB and in what conditions it would be best to unformat a USB drive.

How to Unformat a Flash Drive Using Data Recovery Tools

If you’ve accidentally formatted your pen drive and lost important data during the process, you can unformat it to recover your data back. And the easiest way of unformatting your flash drive is to use data recovery software like Disk Drill.

Your data recovery chances also depend on the type of formatting option you used while formatting your pen drive. A quick format deletes the files on your pen drive and recreates the file system without altering the files on your pen drive.

However, when you perform a full format of your pen drive, your OS not only deletes your files but also overwrites them with zeroes. This completely removes your files from your pen drive and makes it impossible to recover files without a backup.

Here’s how to recover data from your pen drive using Disk Drill:

1. Download Disk Drill from the official website. Once the download is complete, install and launch the program.
2. On the home screen, you’ll notice your primary as well as all other storage drives connected to your PC. Select the USB drive you want to perform recovery on and click Search for lost data to scan your storage for lost files.
3. Disk Drill will scan the storage for all lost files. You don’t need to wait for the scan to finish, as you can click Review found items at any time and let the scan run in the background. Files will pop up in the list as Disk Drill finds them.
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   To make this job easy, Disk Drill comes packed with a bunch of features that can sort through files and filter them on the basis of type, size, and date of deletion, and you can even directly search for the file by name.

4. In the next window, you can sort all the files Disk Drill has found based on type by selecting the file type on the left sidebar.
5. You can also use the search bar to filter files by name to find them easily.
6. You can also see the probability of a successful recovery next to each file.
7. Find and select the files you want to recover. Then, click the Recover button to continue.
8. Lastly, select a destination for your recovered files and click OK to finish the data recovery process.

All your files from your unformatted USB flash drive have now been safely stored on your PC in your provided folder.

How To Unformat (Reformat) USB Pen Drive Using CMD (Diskpart)

If you’ve formatted your USB drive to a wrong file system, or if your USB drive has corrupted due to improperly formatting or hindering the formatting process, most likely, it won’t function properly. You might see the drive listed in File Explorer, but when you open it to see its contents, you may get errors like

• The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
• The drive is not accessible.
• Please insert a disk into drive.

The worst part is that you might not be able to format the drive again using the traditional Windows formatting utility. Luckily, there are other ways to undo the improper formatting and also reformat the drive correctly using the Diskpart command in Command Prompt.

Here’s how to reformat your pen drive using CMD:

1. Connect your USB flash drive to your PC.
2. Go to your Windows Explorer search bar and type “cmd,” and run the tool as administrator.
3. Now, type “diskpart” on the cmd interface.
4. Type “list disk” and hit Enter.
5. Then, enter “Select disk X” (where “X” represents the volume number your USB has been assigned).
6. Command Prompt will print a message saying, “Disk X now the selected disk.“
7.  Now, type “Clean” and hit enter.
8. Next, you need to repartition it by typing “create partition primary.”
9. Finally, end the process by typing “format fs=fat32” and hitting Enter. You can choose any supported system file type other than fat32 if you want.
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   It can take up to a few minutes to format your drive using CMD.

   

10. You have successfully formatted your USB drive.

Can Formatting End Up Damaging My Flash Drive?

Ideally, formatting your flash drive should not damage it. Most pen drives can be erased and rewritten between 10,000 and 100,000 times. However, it’s also not uncommon to run into errors while formatting your thumb drive and accidentally end up damaging it.

For example, if you cancel the formatting process midway, or your PC unexpectedly shuts down while you’re formatting your drive, you’re most likely going to end up with a corrupt pen drive. Not to mention, messing around with the command prompt can also damage your pen drive if you make the slightest mistake.

In most cases, these damaged pen drives either throw up an error saying, “You need to format USB drive X before using it” or “USB X:/ is not accessible.” Worst of all, your pen drive is not recognized on your computer when you plug it in.

Luckily, there are data recovery software like Disk Drill that can not only recover data from a corrupt pen drive but can also recover data from a physically damaged pen drive that does not even show up in the file explorer.

However, if the pen drive is severely damaged, either logically or physically, your best option is to send it to a data recovery service. That’s because they use advanced machines and tools to recover data that is beyond the scope of being recovered by a data recovery freeware. Naturally, you have a higher chance of getting your important data back.

Frequently Asked Questions

Let’s take a look at a few commonly asked questions related to unformating a pen drive:

Wrap Up

In this article, we learned that it is possible to recover data from a formatted USB and went over the safe methods of formatting it. If none of these methods help you perform RAW USB drive recovery, you need to first make sure that your pen drive isn’t damaged. Although Disk Drill can retrieve data successfully up to some extent from faulty pen drives as well, in case of severe physical damage to the pen drive, it is best to seek help from a professional data recovery service.