Click Review found items to see the content of the image.

Click Search for lost data to scan the image.

Select Data Recovery from the left pane and select the mounted image.

Choose the byte-to-byte backup of your USB drive to mount it.

Click the three dots in the upper-right corner.

Typing ‘format fs=ntfs’ and hitting Enter.Īssuming you’ve used Disk Drill to create a byte-to-byte backup of your USB drive before formatting, you can now use the same application to restore your data:.

Once you follow these steps, your drive will be formatted, and all you have to do then is to make it accessible again by:

Type ‘select disk (the number of your disk)’.

Once the Diskpart window is open, type ‘list disk’ and press Enter.

Type’ Command Prompt’ in the Windows search bar and open the program.

Using Command Prompt to format your drive takes a bit of effort, but if you prefer to go about this procedure this way, you need to:

Enter the following command: chkdsk X: /r.

Typically, scanning the problematic USB drive with CHKDSK is all it takes to make the error message go away and your data become accessible again. The message usually says: ‘You need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it’, as shown below. In cases like this, it’s usually the fault of the USB flash drive as it’s gotten corrupted or damaged. If you’re worried that you need formatting to access your data on a USB drive that says it needs to be formatted or can’t be accessed by Windows File Explorer, you can relax as there are solutions. Various third-party tools let you securely format your USB drive by overwriting its content at least one time with new data, making data recovery impossible.ĭo You Need Formatting to Access Your Data? This formatting type works exactly like Quick formatting, but it also scans the formatted USB drive for bad sectors, which is a time-consuming process, that makes data recovery next to impossible. Yes, your data can be restored if it has not been overwritten by further use of the device.

In this scenario, your operating system creates a new file system on your device without permanently deleting the data on it. If you choose this formatting type, all files will be instantly removed from your USB drive, but the drive won’t be scanned for bad sectors. After formatting a USB drive, the chances you’ll have for recovering data depend on the type of formatting you choose.

Thumb drive format for mac and pc