Does USB Data Recovery Require Specialist Tools?
- Posted by admin
- August 26th, 2010
- Under: gadgets
USB drives can store huge amounts of data these days, which makes it all the more irritating if you delete or format the devices contents in error. This article shows how to use regular freeware for USB data recovery and how to get the best results.
The key to data recovery on a USB device is understanding that all data recovery tools operate based on being able to read and scan the file system format for the media or storage device you want to recover lost data from.
The most common format is the FAT-32 used by Windows for internal hard drives. The great thing about USB flash drives is that they also support FAT-32 (i.e. they have a master boot record, file allocation table, etc.). Therefore, any data recovery software meant for internal hard drives will also work on USB flash drives.
This also means that are plenty of freeware options to choose from too. Both Smart Recover and Recuva are free options that are popular at finding deleted and formatted content.
These tools all complete USB data recovery the same way:
- You select the drive to scan using the program.
- The program looks for data clusters on the disk and reads the file allocation table (FAT) for references to deleted/lost documents. A list of found files are presented to you.
- You can then clone/copy the clusters to a new directory.
Even if you are formatting the USB drive (for example, to fix PC errors) then this will only clear the FAT of document references, but the data clusters on disk can still be found and recovered.
So, the next time you need to do some USB data recovery, simply search online for freeware data recovery tools that support the FAT32 file system and you should be able to recover your lost data.
Popularity: 7% [?]
USB drives can store huge amounts of data these days, which makes it all the more irritating if you delete or format the devices contents in error. This article shows how to use regular freeware for USB data recovery and how to get the best results.
The key to data recovery on a USB device is understanding that all data recovery tools operate based on being able to read and scan the file system format for the media or storage device you want to recover lost data from.
The most common format is the FAT-32 used by Windows for internal hard drives. The great thing about USB flash drives is that they also support FAT-32 (i.e. they have a master boot record, file allocation table, etc.). Therefore, any data recovery software meant for internal hard drives will also work on USB flash drives.
This also means that are plenty of freeware options to choose from too. Both Smart Recover and Recuva are free options that are popular at finding deleted and formatted content.
These tools all complete USB data recovery the same way:
- You select the drive to scan using the program.
- The program looks for data clusters on the disk and reads the file allocation table (FAT) for references to deleted/lost documents. A list of found files are presented to you.
- You can then clone/copy the clusters to a new directory.
Even if you are formatting the USB drive (for example, to fix PC errors) then this will only clear the FAT of document references, but the data clusters on disk can still be found and recovered.
So, the next time you need to do some USB data recovery, simply search online for freeware data recovery tools that support the FAT32 file system and you should be able to recover your lost data.
Popularity: 7% [?]