How do I recover files from an USB flash drive?

Question

I have a USB flash drive that claims it needs to be formatted every time I put it into my computer (Windows). Yesterday the drive was healthy and had data on it. The data is probalby still there. Are there any free tools to restore the drive? If not free, what tools are known to work in this situation?

Answer 1

PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures (thus, its 'Photo Recovery' name) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the filesystem and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's filesystem has been severely damaged or re-formatted.

PhotoRec is free, open source and portable (doesn't require installation).

if you're looking for professional data recovery software, then you best bet is WinHex (or the 'light' version Davory)

WinHex and Davory are shareware, try before you buy.

Answer 2

First thing I would try is to plug it into another computer - I have no idea why, but ever since floppy drives, this works more often than not.

If it still does not work, you will want to try generic recovery tools.

I recommend Recuva for free, or if you want to pay then R-Studio

Answer 3

I would really like to reccomend GetDataBack from runtime software. They have two different versions, 1 for FAT32 and NTFS. Despite costing money, they are invaluable tools, on par with Spinrite from GRC(If you are running hdd's), worth every penny.

Previously I have been able to restore files from an ntfs volume which was formatted and had windows reinstalled on top of it, as well as another system which had centOS (linux) partitioned,formatted, and installed over, and was still able to find data on the drive.

http://www.runtime.org/

Answer 4

If none of the other tools work, I would also give a try with Active File Recovery.
There is a limited trial version, so you don't have to pay for it to test it out.

Answer 5

I had great success recovering some Nikon RAW image files using: http://store.lexar.com/imagerescue3/index.cfm

A very simple process but took 30mins for a 2GB SD card. I did have to do a quick format of the card first so that the OS could see the card as it really was stuffed. This just deleted the file table and doesn't do anything to the actual data, so is reasonably safe to do, but only do this if needed.