A fairly common phenomenon can be called a situation when a user inserts a USB-drive, which stores some important information, into the corresponding port, but the system asks to format the USB flash drive. What to do in this case? First of all, do not panic. The fact is that with the right approach to solving this problem, the data will most likely not go anywhere. In extreme cases, they can be restored even after formatting. The methods proposed below allow you to avoid the need for formatting with full recovery of everything that is stored on a removable device.
The system does not read the flash drive (asks to format): what to do?
In general, the mistake of many users is the storage of important information or personal data on removable media, since they are more likely than hard drives to suffer from software failures and physical breakdowns.
We are not talking about physical damage now, but as for software violations in working with the appearance of bad sectors due to a violation of the integrity of the file system, you need to use the appropriate troubleshooting methods. Suppose a computer asks to format a USB flash drive. What to do? Indeed, full formatting will destroy absolutely all data. Well, if you apply fast formatting. Recovering information in such a situation is easy. But the system offers to make full formatting. In this case, for starters, you can use Windows tools with the parallel use of special software to restore the health of the device itself and restore the files that are stored on it.
The flash drive does not open (asks to format): what to do in the simplest case?
The first method of restoring the drive’s health is to use the standard disk verification tool, which is launched not through the disk’s properties section, but from the command line that starts with administrator rights.
To run it, you can use the Run console and the cmd command, or directly open the cmd.exe file in the System32 directory of the main operating system directory.
So, the computer asks to format the USB flash drive. What to do? First you need to remember the letter of the disk, and then in the command console write a line to check the media for errors with their automatic correction. For example, if a device in the system appears under the letter Z, the command looks like this: chkdsk z: / f. Depending on the volume, the process can take a lot of time, so you have to wait. At least in most cases, software crashes can be fixed quite simply.
Most Popular Removable USB Storage Utilities
If the failure cannot be fixed by the method described above, you will have to use additional software.
Among the most popular and most workable programs, the following can be distinguished:
- TestDisk.
- Handy Recovery.
- Active @ File Recovery.
- Recuva.
- R.Saver and R-Studio.
Testdisk
Now let's look at a situation where the first technique did not work, and the system again asks to format the USB flash drive. What to do in such a situation? One of the most effective methods, many experts call the use of TestDisk, which works in DOS-mode.
With this utility, everything is quite simple. We start the program, use the arrows to select our device, specify the parameter value for the partition table (usually Intel), select the restored partition in the form of the entire media (Whole disk), for the file system, select the Other parameter, which corresponds to FAT32, and at the end, specify the full path to advance the created directory where the recovered files are supposed to be saved.
Handy recovery
Now a few words about one more program. Again, it is assumed that the system asks to format the USB flash drive. What if previous methods didn’t work? You can recommend the use of Handy Recovery.
After starting the utility in the main window, select the removable disk, click the start analysis button, select the folder or file that you want to restore in the results (they will be marked with the corresponding markers), and click the restore button.
Active @ File Recovery
Let's see what can be done if the previous methodology did not give a result, but the system again asks to format the USB flash drive. What to do in this case? Use Active @ File Recovery.
With her, too, there should not be any special problems. In the main window, select the removable media from the menu on the left and press the SuperScan button, then indicate the type of file system, press the process start button, and then use the data recovery function, calling it from the menu or immediately using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + R. After of this, the indicated destination directory for saving data, after which it is completely safe to do formatting, if this is really necessary.
Recuva
The Recuva program is quite popular among ordinary users, because it is very easy to use.
To restore files, you can specify a specific type of data (for example, audio, video or graphics). If you want to find everything that can be restored, the “All files” option is selected. In the results, files that can be returned to their original state are marked in green. Those that you can try to restore are yellow, and those that cannot be restored are red.
R.Saver and R-Studio
But the Recuva application does not always work correctly, not to mention the fact that it may not detect long-deleted objects. In such a situation, it is best to give preference to R.Saver and R-Studio utilities, which are very similar to each other.
It is these two programs that can find on removable media even those files that the user is not even aware of deleting. Of course, the scanning process will take much more time, but the result for many will be completely unexpected.