How to Recover Deleted Files from a USB Flash Drive

Issue:

Lost files from a USB flash drive. Need to find out how to recover deleted files from a USB flash drive.

Cause:

Lost files can occur because of any of the reasons below.

• File was mistakenly deleted from the USB flash drive.
• File was deleted due to an unexpected format.
• File was deleted due to improper operation like ejecting the USB incorrectly.
• The partition structure on a USB flash drive was fragmented or partition table was invalid.
• Another program deleted the file.

Solutions:

• Method 1: Recover USB file from a Backup
• Method 2: Restore Deleted files from a USB drive from the Recycle bin/Trash
• Method 3: Recover files from USB Flash Drive With USB File Recovery

Method 1 Recover USB files from a Backup

When you have lost files, the first thing you need to check is whether you have a backup on your computer or other storage media. If the answer is yes, just go to the backup and get it on your USB drive again.

Regularly creating a backup is very important and useful.

Method 2 Restore Deleted files from a USB drive from the Recycle bin/Trash

As we know, there is no recycle bin or trash on a USB drive. Hence, when you delete a file directly from the USB drive, it's just gone. However, if you didn't directly delete the file from your USB drive, but dragged it to the recycle bin or trash on your computer, you can then restore it directly from there.

If you happened to empty the recycle bin or trash, you still have a chance to recover deleted files from the recycle bin/trash, but you need to use a third-party tool. This is further explained in Method 3.

Method 3 Recover files from USB Flash Drive With USB File Recovery

1. Wondershare USB File Recovery (Windows and Mac versions)

Easy to use with friendly interfaces; effective and safe data recovery software; preview before Flash drive recovery; offers a trial version for scanning and checking data.

Wondershare Data Recovery has both Windows and Mac versions, which allows you to recover files in up to 550+ formats. It works for lots of devices, like computers, laptops, external hard drives, USB flash drives, cameras, MP3/MP4 players, and so forth. Follow the next simple steps to recover file from USB flash drive:

Step 1 Launch Wondershare Flash Drive recovery software on your computer, and select the type of files you want to recover. Click Next to start perform flash drive recovery.

Step 2 Make sure you have connect your USB flash drive to your computer, and go to the option of external removable device chooes your flash drive.

Step 3 After the quick scan finished, you can preview the recovered file from USB flash drive. If you can't not find your files from the recovered result, go to scan again with Deep Scan.

Step 4 With the Deep Scan, it will search more files from flash drive. While it will take more time.

Step 5 Preview all the recoverable files from flash drive, you can preview them by the specific name.

Step 6 Click “Recover” button to get your lost files back after you have previewed the files selected.

2. Recuva (Windows version)

Pros: Free, easy-to-use undeleting; includes secure-delete feature; portable version runs from USB stick.
Cons: Not as powerful as for-purchase alternatives; reports files as "unrecoverable" that are still on the hard disk in the same location.

Recuva is a free-to-download flash drive recovery that recovers deleted files from virtually any disk that Windows can read. That means that it lets you recover deleted files from your USB drive, as long as it can be read by your computer. Recuva is effortless to use, with an attractive interface that you can navigate easily.

Download it here: http://download.piriform.com/rcsetup149.exe

3. PhotoRec (Windows and Mac versions)

Pros: Free USB file recovery software; clear instructions; actually work.
Cons: No preview; working in terminal may scare some people.

PhotoRec is safe to use, it will never attempt to write to the drive or memory support that you are about to recover from. Recovered files are instead written in the directory from where you are running the PhotoRec program. To recover files from hard disk, USB key, Smart Card, CD-ROM, DVD etc., you need sufficient rights to access the physical device.

Download it here: http://download.piriform.com/rcsetup149.exe

4. Restore (Windows)

Pros: Not only restores but also wipes everything on a specific drive; works on FAT as well as on NTFS.
Cons: Uses a mildly strange interface (using the 'Others'-button insteadof 'Delete Completely' and a completely different button for 'Restore by Copying'); acts as if deletion/wiping was not desired; offers no HELP at all.

Restoration is a tiny yet simple portable utility that allows it's user to restore or recover files that have been removed from Windows or deleted from the recycle bin. Restoration can also be used to recover lost photots and other misc files from portable media such as USB flash drives, hard drives and compact flash cards typically used by most digital camera's.

Download it here: http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/Restoration.zip