Why does my flash drive says it need to be formatted?
In general, the error that partitions on external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, etc. Can't be opened and accessed is of common occurrence. And, various factors including sudden power failure, virus invasion, bad sectors, can cause this issue. Flash drive was plugged in and son pushed laptop off my lap now flash drive won't load. When plug into USB the light comes on then in seconds goes off and not loaded. When I go to My Computer it is not listed. Other flash drives load, so it is not the comuter. Is there anyway to retreive the.
Sometimes, your computer will ask you to format the USB flash drive. That's to say, your flash drive may be corrupted or damaged. And you are not able to open USB stick and the data on it.
Then, I will list the common scenario in the following.
Flash will not be disabled by default from Microsoft Edge (built on EdgeHTML) or Internet Explorer 11 prior to its removal by December of 2020. Flash will be completely removed from all browsers by December 31, 2020, via Windows Update. Group policies are available for enterprise admins and IT pros to change the Flash behavior prior to that date. The system may not be able to recognize the flash drive if the drive is connected to a bus-powered USB hub. Bus-powered USB hubs split available power between the ports; if the port doesn't have enough energy to operate a connected device, the device won't work. If you have USB composite drive listed in device manager. I suggest you to uninstall it from device manager and choose scan for hardware changes. Step 2 - connect the USB drive, reboot and tap F12 on dell logo, check if the PC detects the cruzer drive. Also check if the LED on the drive flashes.
USB drive holds bad sectors and displays 'disk needs to be formatted'.
USB drive is blank or has an unsupported file system.
'Please Insert Disk into Removable Disk'.
USB drive shows 0 bytes or 'folder is empty'.
The virus has infected the flash drive and corrupted the files in it.
'USB Device Not Recognized or Malfunctioned'.
'You need to format the disk before using it'.
When you receive one of the message above, you need to backup files before formatting first, then you have a chance to recover files from corrupted drive. If you directly format USB, all your files will go forever.
2 solutions to fix a corrupted flash drive without losing data
When flash drive is corrupted, most users may choose to recover data first. Because it may contain their precious memories or work documents that cannot afford loss.
Solution 1: Recover data from flash drive using CMD
To recover data using CMD, just see below:
Step 1. Open CMD. You can press Win + R to summon the Run window, then type cmd.exe and click OK.
Step 2. Check if your drive has bad sectors. In the command prompt, type the following command and hit Enter.
chkdsk H: /f (H is the drive letter of USB drive. If your drive has a different drive letter, you can replace it.)
Step 3. Type Y If the drive is in use and hit Enter key to proceed. If the CMD does not prompt, you can see Step 4.
Step 4. Get the deleted files back. You can type the following command and press Enter to run it.
attrib –h –r –s/s /d H: *.*
Note:
-h command assigns the Hidden attribute to the selected files.
-r refers to Read-only attribute: files are readable and cannot be changed.
-s assigns System attribute to the selected files.
/s implies to search the specified path including subfolders.
/d command includes process folders.
After all operation finish, you will find that all the recovered files are saved on your USB drive with a newly created folder. By default, the files will be in .chk format. But you still can change the file format and save it at the preferred location.
Solutions 2: Recover files from backup image
If you create a file backup before formatting the drive, you can restore it from the backup image. If you don't have other backup image, you still can use 'Explore Image' feature to restore files.
To recover files from backup, use the following steps:
Open the free backup software AOMEI Backupper Standard, click Restore at the initial screen, click Select Task or Select Image File to find the backup image, then select the files or folders you want to restore and decide where to restore the file, click Start Restore.
If you create other backup image, such as, disk backup, partition backup, you still restore file the image. AOMEI Backupper offers you a feature called Explore Image Digital art programs for microsoft surface. that can allows you to do selective file restore via virtual partitions.
Tip: If you want more advanced features, such as, incremental and differential backup, USB plug in, wake the computer to run scheduled task, command-line backup, dissimilar hardware restore etc, you can upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional. To protect unlimited PC and Servers, AOMEI Backupper Technician Plus will be a better choice.
5 solutions to fix a corrupted USB without formatting it
When your USB drive is damaged, you cannot directly format it. Because this operation will lead to data loss forever. Just stop using it and learn how to open USB without formatting in Windows 10, 8, 7 by the given solutions.
Solution 1: Test different USB ports on different computers
USB port can be one of the reasons that your flash drive does not work properly. I recommend you to check all the USB ports on your computer.
Solution 2: Assign a drive letter for USB via Disk Management
Sometimes, the computer cannot assign a drive letter for external USB drive owing some unknown reasons. Thus, you can plug your drive into the computer and manually assign a drive letter for it.
To assign drive letter for corrupted USB in Windows, see steps below:
Step 1. Press Win + R to open the Run windows and type diskmgmt.msc
Step 2. Right-click your drive, select Change Drive Letter and Paths from the context menu.
Step 3. Click Add, select a drive letter in the drop-down menu and hit OK.
Step 4. See if you can open your drive and access your data.
Note: some users report that they cannot press Change Drive Letter and Path. There are two main reasons for it. First,the file system of USB is not FAT32 or NTFS. Second, the USB is write-protected. Thus, you can turn to a third-party tool like AOMEI Partition Assistant and change drive letter with it.
Solutions 3: Fix a corrupted flash drive without formatting using chkdsk
The command chkdsk is used to check the file system and status of system drive, then it will fix the found errors. If the problem still exits, you can try this method.
Step 1. Go to command prompt, type chkdsk H: /r and hit Enter to run it.
Step 2. Wait patiently and type exit to leave this window if there is no problem.
Note: Some users receive the eror message when using this method, saying, 'chkdsk is not available for raw drives'. If you one of them, you can try method 4.
Solution 4: Fix corrupted USB with disk check utility
How to fix corrupted USB on windows 10, 8,7? You can use built-in disk check utility, which will scan your disk to find system errors, bad sectors and fix it. If there are bigger issues that it can't fix, it will show you details.
Note: In different Windows, there is a little difference in expression. But, the steps are basically the same and you can follow the steps below.
To fix corrupted USB, follow the steps below:
Step 1. Connect USB drive to PC.
Step 2. Open the property of USB drive. Open Computer or This PC, right-click Removable Disk and open its Properties.
Step 3. Check and recover corrupted USB drive.
Click on Tools, tick the Check Now option and check Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, then click Start to begin the scan process.
Step 4. Click Start to begin the scan process. Wait and click Close once the process complete.
Solutions 5: Fix a corrupted USB drive with Device Manager
Step 1. Go to Control Panel and Device Manger. Also, you can directly type device manager in the search box and select it from the result list.
Step 2. Enable USB drive. Expand Disk Drive list and right-click on the USB drive and choose Enable, then wait patiently.
A little advice - What if you format USB flash drive?
Open Flash Drive Windows 10
Usually, when you are asked to format your USB drive, you will choose to format it. But, to be honest, this operation is not recommended, because it can delete all of your data on this drive.
Don't be panic. Even if you format the USB thumb drive, you still can restore your data. Because every file has its structure, including directory and blocks. When you format the drive, you just remove the directory of it. All your files are marked as unimportant and keep intact here.
You need to pay attention to the following things.
1. Stop using the USB drive.
2. Do not add new items to USB stick.
Why Won't My Flash Drive Open On My Laptop
3. Do not reformat the USB flash drive.
