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Unformat flash drive data recovery

Disk is not formatted. Do you want to format it now? We may see such prompt on the computer screen when try to open storage devices to read its data, such as the flash drive. It shows that the flash drive is in not formatted error. We need to format it at first if we want to open it. As a result, contents saved on the flash drive previously are lost in that case. What if those original files are important? As a matter of fact, we can try to recover them from the unformatted flash drive.

Example of being asked to format drive

I had a bad flash drive which gave the "format drive" request when I double clicked the icon of it on the computer to open it. You need to format the disk in drive R before you can use it. Do you want to format it now? I was prompted by information above. I did not format it at that time. Should I format the problematic flash drive? I did not want to lose files saved on it at the previous time and I need to access them again. What I should do to view those original contents normally? -Angel from LA

How to recover files from the unformatted flash drive with data recovery software

There is the possibility to retrieve files stored on the flash drive previously when it shows not formatted error. And the tool we need to use is data recovery software. We can access those files normally if we can get them back from the unformatted flash drive successfully. Here are the steps to unformat flash drive recovery as follows:

Recover data from flash drive

Preparation: You can connect the flash to your computer. Then, download and install the data recovery software on your computer. Finally, you can run the software and choose a recovery module after entering the main interface of the software.

1Download the data recovery software and mount it on the computer.
2Insert the unformatted flash drive to the computer that the data recovery tool installed.
3Run the data restoration program on the computer and choose the recovery model and target disk to scan.
4Preview the contents in the list after the scan and then pick up the data needed to recover.

Reasons that the flash drive need to be formatted

It may be a hard choice to make when asked to format the flash drive for most of us. Files saved on it would be erased completely after the format, so we may not format it because of that. The flash drive can not be opened to let us view its files before the format. Consequently, we have no idea what to do in that case. Now we have known that we can perform data recovery when flash drive unformatted and then format it. But do you know the reason of flash drive unformat is? Actually, the reasons are various. Here are some of them below:

1. The flash drive is not formatted. System may prompt us to format the flash drive if it is not formatted. Generally speaking, it is better to format the flash drive when it is used at the first time, and then we can store new information on it.

2. The process of formatting the flash drive is quitted. System will ask us to format the flash drive if it is not formatted completely. For example, we may quit formatting the flash drive in the process of the format due to some reasons. As a result, the flash drive can not be used normally in the next time and need to be formatted at the second time completely before we can use it normally.

3. The flash drive is infected by virus. One of the common reasons of unformatted flash drive is the virus attacks. We need to format the flash drive before we can use it after the virus infection. But it is one of the results of virus infection to flash drive. For example, the files on the flash drive may become messy codes after the virus attacks, too.

4. There are bad sectors in the flash drive. The flash drive needs to be formatted before we can use it if there are bad sectors on it. So we should be careful when use or place the flash drive in daily life.

5. Other possible reasons of the unformatted flash drive.

Files types can be retrieved from the flash drive unformat

When the flash drive shows unformat problem, we can try to get all types of files which saved on it previously back with data recovery program, such as pictures, video files, audio files, word documents, and so forth.

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