Free Flash Drive Recovery Software

We use portable drives for everything these days. We store our lives on these convenient devices, from our important and sensitive documents to family and holiday photos. Either way, we store too much on our USB flash drives to lose them. When it happens, and it will, we need a good USB device recovery solution. Fortunately, Disk Drill has everything you need.

No one expects to lose data from their USB pen drives. Because of this, we usually take the drives for granted. However, accidents do occur, often without warning. You may have accidentally overwritten the data on the drive for example. Before you know it, you lost everything. Then, you need the Disk Drill flash drive data recovery feature.
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Free version recovers up to 500 MB

To Recover Deleted Files from a USB Drive:

  1. Connect a USB drive to your PC
  2. Download & Install Disk Drill
  3. Select the drive from the list of available drives
  4. Click the "Recover" button
  5. Preview the files by clicking on the “eye” icon next to the filename
  6. Select & save your files
recovering deleted files from flash drive

  • Not Really Gone

    Disk Drill for Windows can recover files that have been deleted on NTFS & FAT32 drives with just a few clicks.

  • Simple & Efficient

    Just a few clicks will get you started. Don’t worry about complicated settings or jargon. File recovery made easy.

  • Cost-Effective

    Disk Drill for Windows allows up to 500 MB of file recovery at no cost. After 500 MB Disk Drill is affordable and easy.

How We Lose USB Flash Drive Data

Disk Drill will even recover data from corrupted drives. Your USB drive can break down in a number of ways. Your drive's Master Boot Record (MBR) or Partition Boot Record (PBR) could have invalid data or a corrupted directory structure. You can even corrupt your data if you unmount your drive improperly. Either way, you will find it difficult to recover deleted files from the flash drive without Disk Drill.

Get your files back with Disk Drill

Other USB Data Recovery Reasons

Accidental deletions and corrupted partitions are the most common reasons people lose their data, but it is not the only reason. You may have accidentally formatted the drive. You might have a virus on your computer. A power surge or electro-static discharge could have damaged your drive. You may have removed the drive improperly when your computer was writing to it. In any of these cases, Disk Drill will get your files back.

You Can Recover Files from external hard drives

In spite of all that can go wrong, you can recover lost data from an external storage device. You just need a good data recovery software application such as Disk Drill. A good USB flash drive recovery tool will scour your deleted or corrupted media to find data to restore in a simple user interface.

Recover Deleted Files from Flash Drives Any Time

Deleted files are never gone right away. Windows simply marks their space as free for other files and applications. Thus, you can recover the data at any time, provided that you did not write over them. Disk Drill data recovery software tracks these hidden files for weeks, even months, so you can restore them at your leisure.

Disk Drill is a complete data recovery suite. It has the tools and features you need to retrieve all of your lost files on all of your drives from USB sticks to your hard drives.

How to Recover Deleted Files from Flash Drives with Disk Drill

Regardless of why you cannot reach your lost USB files, Disk Drill will find them for you. It will show you how to recover deleted files from any type of external storage device. You just have to insert the USB device into your computer and run the application.

Disk Drill can retrieve any lost file on your flash drive, but that does you no good if you are using the wrong drive. The Quick Scan feature will list every deleted file on it so you can decide which files you want to restore. However, if your data was unfortunately written over, you may still recover the files with Deep Scan. Deep Scan digs through the storage device for any lost file pieces that it can process using file signatures.

Recover Permanently Deleted Files from Flash Drive Without Software

Check the Recycle Bin for Deleted Files

The first place you should look for files deleted from your flash drive is the Recycle Bin. Your files might be there and recovering from the bin will save you a bunch of time over any alternative method. Here’s what to do:


  1. Open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking on it, or by right-clicking and selecting Open.
  2. Search for the file or folders that you wish to recover.
  3. Right-click on your selections and choose Restore.
flash drive recovery with recycle bin

Files deleted from a flash drive may not make it to the Recycle bin. If that’s the case, you can try the next method.

Try to Restore the Previous Versions of Your Files and Folders

You might be able to rescue your deleted files or folders by restoring them from a previous version residing on your computer. To attempt this type of recovery, follow these steps:


  1. Open File Explorer.
  2. Navigate to the file or folder that you wish to recover.
  3. Right-click and select Restore previous versions from the menu.
  4. Select the version you wish to recover from the list displayed.
  5. Click the Restore button to recover your file or folder.
recover files from flash drive via file history

In order for this method to work, Windows needs to have created a restore point that contains a previous version of the file or folders you want to recover.

Try to Restore Your Lost Data Using CMD

You can also try to recover deleted files using the Windows command line and the Attrib command. Here’s what you need to do:


  1. Press the Windows key + R and type CMD in the search box.
  2. In the CMD window type chkdsk “drive letter” /f and click Enter.
  3. Press the Y key until the command line restarts.
  4. Type the drive letter again and press Enter to go back to the start.
  5. Type this command - ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D “drive letter”:*.*.
recovering deleted files from flash drive with cmd

When the recovery process is complete, all recovered files will be in a newly created folder. The files may be in the CHK format and need to be renamed in order to be used by your applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated on by Disk Drill Team

Follow these steps to reformat a flash drive:

  1. Connect the drive to your Windows computer.
  2. Locate the drive in Device Manager and right click the drive.
  3. Select Policies and Optimize for performance.
  4. Open My Computer and select Format on the flash drive.

Your flash drive might not be working correctly for a few different reasons. It could be physically damaged by heat or moisture. The file system could have become corrupted by a virus. You might be using a faulty USB port. Your system may have an outdated driver that is causing the problem.

The answer depends on the extent of the damage. In order to recover files from a broken flash drive you need to be able to connect it to your computer. Once it’s attached, data recovery software may be able to recognize the drive as a raw disk and successfully restore your files.

Recover files from a formatted flash drive with this procedure:

  1. Connect the flash drive to your computer.
  2. Launch your data recovery software.
  3. Allow the software to scan the drive for recoverable files.
  4. Restore the files to a new location on your main drive.

If your flash drive is not recognized, you have several options:

  1. Connect the drive to another USB port if one is available.
  2. Try using a different computer that may be able to read the drive.
  3. Uninstall and reinstall the USB port through Device Manager.

More About Disk Drill & Recovery

Free USB Data Recovery Tool

Disk Drill offers the best file recovery solution for your lost files. It is a simple tool that walks you through the recovery process to restore any file you need. You can even set it up to track your deleted files so you can get them back with a single click. Sure, it will not recover data with a broken connector, damaged circuit board, or any other hardware issue, but Disk Drill should work in all other cases. Plus, it is free. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain with Disk Drill from CleverFiles.
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Robust USB Flash Drive Data Recovery Algorithms

Quick Scan and Deep Scan are just two of the many data recovery features that come with Disk Drill. The tool comes with excellent sorting algorithms that let you see the files on your USB drive. You can then choose which files you want to be restored or use the Undelete Protected Data feature completely free. You can even recover the whole lost partition as well!
  • Recover deleted files from USB
  • USB Flash Drive Data Recovery Tool for Windows
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  • What others are saying about Disk Drill
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  • Ken Morrow
    Ken Morrow
    I had a Sandisk Extreme SD card go glitchy in my Samsung phone with about 4k photos and videos with no backup. 5 years of memories. Three of your “competitors” estimated a retrieval of 2000 items. One company never sent me a good product key. The others made excuses for results. One managed to actually retrieve a few hundred. Your software retrieved all but 150 items in perfect or near perfect condition!!! Nearly 4000 photos and videos. You guys are awesome!!! Those photos are my life!! Thank you.
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  • softpedia.com
    softpedia.com
    «Disk Drill is a practical and intuitive utility that can successfully assist you in regaining access to lost or damaged files from a variety of disk or file system types, making it quite worthy for considering, should you be in the market for such a tool.» by Marina Dan
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