Recovering files from a USB drive

Disk formatting is a process of creating a new file system on a data storage medium which cannot but lead to the loss of all files stored in a previous one, assuming that no backup copy has been created in advance. Still, fortunately, the data doesn’t get immediately wiped, and using Raise Data Recovery you can easily retrieve that lost information. Watch this short instruction to see how you can get your gone files back from a formatted USB flash drive without calling professionals in. The same series of steps can be taken in case of data loss from any other portable device, such as an external hard disk drive or a memory card, provided it hasn’t been caused by physical factors and the storage remains functional.

  1. Launch Raise Data Recovery.

  2. Connect your USB drive. This can also be a memory card, a portable hard drive and any other external or internal storage connected to a PC and detected by the program.

  3. The software will show all detected volumes of all drives, including the formatted USB drive among Logical volumes.

  4. If the partitions of the drive are not shown or its capacity is incorrect, the needed drive can be found among Physical disks. It is recommended to select the storage among Physical disks for scanning, as the size of a partition may differ from the given one.

  5. Choose the storage and press Continue to scan it. It is not recommended to skip the scanning in case of working with a formatted storage. The process of scanning may last from several minutes to several hours, depending on the storage capacity and its read speed.

  6. The found files and folders will be shown with brown names in their initial folders or in the folders $LostFiles, Found files and Extra found files. The files can be sorted by date, type of file and size. The program allows previewing text files, PDF files and images.

  7. Select the needed files and folders and press Recover selected to save them.

  8. Choose the storage to save the recovered data to and press Start recovery. Never save the recovered files to the storage you have lost them from. This will lead to permanent and irreversible data loss. The duration of saving the recovered data depends on its amount and the read and write speed of storages.

  9. Press Recovered data to see the recovered files and folders in File Explorer. The recovery process is accomplished and you can now work with your files.