How to Perform Flash Drive Deleted Files Recovery Freely

Lost data from USB flash drive and want to recover? Read this article to know “flash drive deleted file recovery free” method.

Lora

By Lora / Updated on April 2, 2024

Share this: instagram reddit
 

"By mistake, I deleted a folder from my USB flash drive that contains Presentation and Excel files I need this afternoon!  Would appreciate if anyone can help! I use Windows 11."

- Question from Microsoft Community

 

I accidently deleted all of my important files on my usb flash drive. What can be done to recover these files? When i look at what is on my usb drive, there is nothing. The folder is empty. Where did these files go? How can I recover my deleted files from the USB flash DRIVE?   Please help!!!

- Question from Quora

More and more portable external storage devices such as USB flash drive, memory sticks add extra storage space to a computer or mobile device to keep, transfer your photos, videos, some important document files, etc., which brings great convenience.

Sometimes when you accidentally delete or lose data due to corrupted flash drive, virus, malware, or various other reasons, you want to undelete or recover these files but find the folder is empty and the deleted files are not in the Recycle Bin.

Where do deleted USB files go?

Where did these deleted files go? Normally, files deleted from a USB flash drive will be permanently deleted instead of going to the Recycle Bin. Because the USB flash drive is an external device, the OS no longer knows where the file contents are stored and thinks the file is deleted. Therefore, disk sectors are marked as free.

And when you continue to save new data on the flash drive, it will overwrite the deleted data and make it irrecoverable. At this time, there is no manual way to recover deleted data from USB drives, but it is possible to recover it with the help of software.

Next, I will introduce some ways to recover deleted files from flash drive, please keep reading. Before that, you should keep some tips in mind to ensure the success rate of the flash drive data recovery.

Ways of increasing chance of data recovery from flash drive

Actually, the recovery chance depends on the recovery methods you use, but there are still some precautions that help increase your chances of success. Read the tips as follows:

❌ Stop using the flash drive immediately, like moving, copying files, or formatting the drive as soon as you find that your data has been lost/deleted to prevent further damage.
❌ Do not save any new data on the drive or access any existing files on the drive, as it may overwrite deleted data and make it irrecoverable.
❌ Close all other programs that may be using the USB drive.
❌ Do not attempt to repair bad sectors for the flash drive because the repairing process may destroy the deleted data.
❌ Disconnect the flash drive from the computer until you begin the data recovery process.

Flash drive deleted file recovery software free download-MyRecover (High successful rate)

In fact, using a tool for recovery tasks is actually a reliable and simple method that will save you a lot of time searching and finding laborious but fruitless methods. So, you can let professional free USB flash drive data recovery software help you. MyRecover is such a tool, a reliable and user-friendly Windows data recovery software.

As a professional file recovery software, it can help you easily recover data from an external hard drive, USB flash drive, HDD, SSD, with original formats/filenames/directories preserved. Here are some main features of this tool:

●Apply to various data loss situations-inadvertent deletion, disk formatting, system crash, virus attack, etc.
●Recover more than 200 types of data-documents (TXT, PPT, PDF, DOC, etc.), images, videos, audios, texts, etc.
●Scan and recover data at high speed and recovery rate.
●Interface is intuitive and simple, making it easy for a green-hand to operate.
●Perfectly works with NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, ReFS in Windows 11/10/8/7 & Windows Server, supports to recover permanently deleted files in Windows 11/10/8/7.

Now, free download ADR for Windows to perform “flash drive recover deleted files” task.

Download SoftwareWin 11/10/8/7/Server
Secure Download

Step 1. Run MyRecover, connect your flash hard drive to the PC, select a partition that you have lost data. Hover the mouse over the drive and click Scan to scan.

external hard drive start scan

Step 2. During the process, you can directly recover the files it detects, or you can wait for the full scan results.

external hard drive scanning

Step 3. Select the data you want to get back and click Recover x files.

external hard drive recover files

How to recover deleted files from flash drive without software

If you don’t want to download any third-party tools, there are two common ways to retrieve deleted files from USB without software.

Recover deleted files from USB drive using CMD

The first is to use CMD, also known as Command Prompt, is a command line interpreter application on Windows. It is often used by IT professional, software engineers. You can follow the steps below to try to get your data back from the flash drive.

Step 1. Connect the USB drive where the deleted files are stored to your PC, make sure it is recognized by Windows, then press the Win + R keys to start the Run program.

Step 2. Type the” cmd” and click OK.

type cmd  window

Step 3. Type the command in the Window: ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D F:*.*

Note: F is the drive letter of the USB drive, you should replace it with your flash drive.

attrib command

Step 4. After entering the above command, Windows will try to recover your files, and then you can find your deleted data on the flash drive.

How to recover deleted files from USB without software-restore Previous Version

"Recover Previous Versions" is a feature created by Windows Backup that you can use to recover deleted, damaged, or modified files or folders contained in previous versions.

Note: If you never created a backup of a file or folder, you cannot recover deleted files with this method.

Step 1. Press Windows + E to open Windows Explorer, click This Computer, select the drive where your data was deleted.

Step 2. Right-click on folder and select Properties or Restore previous versions.

select properties or restore previous versions

Step 3. Select the previous version you need and click Restore.

click restore

Conclusion

That's all for flash drive deleted file recovery free. Hope this tutorial can help you recover deleted data from flash drive successfully.

As you can see, using restore Previous Version to recover data must be backed up before deleting files or folders, and using cmd requires manual input of the command line, which is not suitable for computer beginners.

While, with the help of recovery software, the process of recovering lost or deleted files from USB drives is no longer complicated or time-consuming. So, MyRecover can be your best choice.

Finally, in order to protect your files from being lost, it is strongly recommended that you make regular backups at all times. AOMEI Backupper can help you, give it a try!

Lora
Lora · Editor
Lora is an editor of AOMEI Technology. She is also a tester and editor of AOMEI Data Recovery Tools. -- "Keep testing, write the most useful tutorials for helping people recover the lost data for Windows and phones" is the most meaningful thing for her. Dedicated to creating helpful tutorials, she hopes her tutorial can assist users to effortlessly solve data loss problems on their personal computers and mobile phones.