How to Recover a Thumb Drive
Thumb drives are great for taking a lot of data with you. If your thumb drive gets corrupted and loses your data, here are a few ways to recover it.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Eject the thumb drive properly from your computer, remove it and then reinsert it to the computer.
-
2
Plug the thumb drive into the original computer you saved the data from (if available) to rule out the possibility that the files are simply not readable on your other computer.
-
-
3
Download data recovery software like "Recover USB Drive Data," and execute the program on the drive to restore your data.
-
4
Create a file system image on your computer the same size as your drive, and copy the corrupted data image over to it. Once the data is copied, execute a file system repair on the image.
-
5
If all else fails, take your drive to a computer repair shop or help center and see if they can help you restore the lost data. Many repair centers already have recovery software available to help them restore corrupted thumb drives.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Once you've recovered your data, reformat your drive before using it again.
