Detailed Steps for You to Recover Data from Formatted USB Drive

Sometimes when you connect your USB drive to the computer, you might see a message on the screen that says “You need to format the drive before you can use it. Do you want to format it? ” Don’t act rashly. If you click “Format disk”, all the data on the USB drive will get removed instantly. You cannot see the important files and folders anymore. Is it feasible to recover data from the formatted flash drive? How do I solve the “USB Drive not Formatted” error so I can view the important data on the computer?

After formatting the USB drive accidentally, you can use the backup file to restore your data or use third-party software like MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover data from formatted USB drive as soon as possible.

Two Ways to Recover Formatted Files from USB Drive

01. Recover formatted files from backup files

Data loss can happen on any day for many reasons, for example, mistaken file deletion, disk/partition formatting, hardware failure, virus attack, Windows update, etc.  If you ever lost some valuable files before, you should know the importance of a saved backup of your data. After you wrongly format the USB drive, you can quickly restore your files and folders from backup files. Further reading – How To Fix Corrupted Kingston Pen Drive: Solutions With Pictures

A proven method to recover formatted files from the USB drive is either through data recovery companies or data recovery software.

If you do not have much time to learn how to use computer tools to get back the lost data, you could seek help from the data recovery companies and ask the full-time data experts to recover lost files from the formatted drive. Some data recovery service companies charge per GB, some services charge on an hourly basis.

If you want to keep your data privacy as best as you can, you could recover formatted files using the professional data recovery software by yourself. Usually, this method is more budget-friendly than the data recovery services. If you only need to recover a small amount of data, you can use free data recovery tools to help you.

We will take MiniTool Power Data Recovery as an example in the following to show you how to recover files from the formatted USB step by step.

02. Recover Data from Formatted USB Flash Drive – Software Tutorial with Pictures

Step 1. Download MiniTool Power Data Recovery from minitool.com website, install the software and launch it. The software interface looks like this.

This free data recovery software provides 4 types of data recovery modules for different usage scenarios.

1. This PC – You could use this data recovery module for retrieving the lost or deleted data from the damaged, RAW, or formatted partitions on your  computer’s hard drive. As long as the partition exists, you can use this module to recover your files successfully.
2.  Removable Disk Drive – This module is designed to recover the lost images, audio files, videos, office files, applications, emails, etc from USB drives, flash drives, memory sticks, SD cards, and more.
3. Hard Disk Drive – This module is often used when you need to recover some missing files from the deleted/lost partition after Windows re-installation.
4. CD/DVD Drive – You could use this data recovery module to recover songs, videos, and other files from the formatted or erased CDs and DVDs.

If you want to recover the files after formatting the USB, you should select “Removable Disk Drive” in this step.

Step 2. Select your USB drive, scan it to find data.

To guarantee the highest possible data recovery rate, you had better wait till the scan process completes. 

If you only want to recover partial files from the USB drive, you can click the “Settings” tab to specify the needed file system (like NTFS, FAT12/16/32, and HFS+) and choose the file types you need (such as documents, audio, archive, graphics/pictures, email, and more).

Step 3. Select all the files you need from the scanning results, then click the “Save” button at the lower right corner to store them in a safe place.

Please note: You must not directly store the needed files to the original partition on your USB drive, otherwise, the deleted data will automatically be overwritten and there’s no way to recover them anymore.

After the software finishes the data scanning process, you can export the scanning results to your computer. Later you could load the previous scanning results to MiniTool Power Data Recovery and select the files that you need. This method saves you the trouble to scan your whole USB drive again. Pay attention – do not export the scanning results to the location where data loss occurs, because that operation will cause hazardous data overwriting.

Part 2. What Can I Do when Seeing the “USB Drive not Formatted” Error?

After you mistakenly format your USB drive, you had better stop using the drive to write any new data, and then follow the steps mentioned above to restore your data with the saved backup files, or use a professional data recovery tool to get the lost data back in time. As long as the important files are not overwritten, you still have the opportunity to recover them.

But what can we do if we encounter the “USB Drive not Formatted” error? To be more specific, when you connect a USB drive to your computer and want to view the files, a message appears on the screen – “You need to format the drive before you can use it. Do you want to format it?” 

What do you plan to do? When you see this message, you cannot view the files on the drive. But upon clicking “Format disk”, you will lose all the data stored on the device.

People who have solved the “USB Drive not Formatted” error without losing important files do 2 things. First, do not format the drive immediately, instead, use third-party data recovery software like MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover all important files previously stored on the USB drive to a new, safe place. Second, format the USB drive without any worries.