2022 Guide: How to Recover Deleted Files from Pen Drive in 3 Ways

How can I recover deleted files from my pen drive? Don't worry if you've lost or accidentally deleted files from your pen drive. On this page, you'll find a comprehensive guide to recovering data from a pen drive using three efficient methods:

Your Reliable Tips: If your pen drive data gets lost due to deletion or virus attack, the professional data recovery software in Method 1 would be a better option. For retrieving hidden files, you can utilize the CMD in Method 2. If the drive is damaged, seek assistance from experts as mentioned in Method 3.

Causes of File Corruption/Loss on USB/Pen Drives

< strong > Pen drives , being small, portable, and lightweight, are widely used to store files and transfer data between devices. However, there's also much data loss that happens on pen drives quite frequently. & nbsp; To recover deleted files from the pen drive, you may want to find the causes of pen drive file loss:

• Accidental deletion
• Formatting
• Virus attack
• File system becoming RAW 
• Files are hidden.

Luckily, with the help of advanced pen drive data recovery software and CMD, you can recover data from a pen drive on your own.

Method 1: How to Recover Files from Pen Drive with Free Software

It's straightforward, dependable, and efficient to retrieve lost pen drive data due to deletion, formatting, virus attacks, etc., using third-party pen drive recovery software. The free data recovery software is trustworthy for pen drive data recovery. Let's see what pen drive recovery software tools can do for you:

Download it now and follow the steps below to restore lost files from your pen drive in minutes:

Step 1. Run USB Data Recovery Software

Connect the USB drive or pen drive to your computer and launch the USB Data Recovery tool on your PC. Select the drive that is labeled as an External Drive, and click "Scan" to start searching for lost files.

Step 2. Scan and Search for Lost Files on the USB Drive

MiniTool Data Recovery Wizard will thoroughly scan your USB flash drive/pen drive and find all your lost data on it. When the scanning process completes, use the Filter feature to locate the wanted files.

Step 3. Restore All Lost Files from USB

A double-click lets you preview the files. Select the target files to restore and hit "Recover" to save them to a secure location on your PC or other external storage devices.

Video Tutorial: How to Use Pen Drive Recovery Software

Here is a video tutorial showing you how to use the tool Data Recovery to find back lost files. You can also follow it to undelete your pen drive data.

方法2：如何使用CMD从U盘恢复数据

Occasionally, when your pen drive becomes corrupted or appears empty, files may seem to disappear. However, these missing files are typically hidden and not truly lost. In such cases, the Command Prompt (CMD) can assist in recovering data from a pen drive when the files are hidden from your device.

Here are the detailed steps to recover hidden data from your pen drive using CMD: 

Step 1. Plug the pen drive into your computer.

Step 2. Click "Start", select "Search" and type in cmd.

Step 3. Right-click "Command Prompt" and choose "Run as administrator".

Step 4. In the Command Prompt, type attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:*.* and press "Enter".

Syntax Explanation:

The following are explanations for each part of the command: - The "-h" option is used to clear the hidden attribute. - The "-r" option is used to clear the read-only attribute. - The "-s" option is used to clear the system attribute. - The "/d" attrib option includes directories, not just files, in the operation you're executing. You can only use "/d" with "/s". - The "e:" part refers to the drive letter of your pen drive. Replace it with the actual drive letter of your USB drive.

Step 5. Wait patiently. When the process is complete, type exit and press "Enter".

After this, your pen drive data will show up in its original location on your drive. And you can make use of them again.

Method 3: Use a Data Recovery Service to Repair a USB Flash Drive

If your USB flash drive or pen drive is physically damaged, you cannot recover data with data recovery software. Instead, you can turn to data recovery experts. tools has partnered with the most reliable data recovery lab in the US. For more than 17 years, we've been providing DIY data recovery solutions. Now you have a chance to get your data back even from previously "unrecoverable" devices.

Tools Disk Repair and Recovery Services

Click here to contact our experts for a free evaluation

Consult with Tools data recovery experts for personalized manual recovery service. After a FREE diagnosis, we can provide the following services:

• Repair HDD, SSD, external hard drives, USB flash drives, and recover data from all RAID levels
• Restore lost partitions that cannot be recovered by data recovery software
• Fix disks unreadable or inaccessible due to bad sectors
• Resolve disks converted to GPT protected partitions
• Wipe data, unformat hard drives, install/uninstall software or drivers, etc.

Here's What to Do After Recovering Deleted Files from a Pen Drive

After recovery, it's suggested to save the files to another drive instead of the original flash drive. Here are some flash drive protection tips we'd like to share with you.

Tips on What to Do after Pen Drive Data Recovery:

1. #1. Format the pen drive to a suitable format - FAT32 or NTFS. Read Also: Best USB Formatter.
2. #2. Create a backup of important pen drive files regularly.

Your files are at risk because any wrong operation may lead to data loss. To protect your files, you can back up pen drive data with free backup software like tools Todo Backup Free, sync to cloud storage, or use Copy & Paste. For a safer solution, third-party backup software like Todo Backup is recommended.

Step 1. The first time you use Todo Backup to back up files, click Create backup on the home screen, then click the big question mark to select backup contents.

Step 2. Since you're going to back up files and folders on your computer, proceed with the "File" backup mode, where you can select photos, videos, documents, and all sorts of file types for backup.

Step 3. Follow the paths to locate the files, folders or directories you want to back up, select them all and click "OK".

Step 4. Now you need to select a backup location to save and retain the backup.

Step 5. Todo Backup allows users to save backup files to any device that is convenient for you, such as a local hard drive, external USB drive, SD card, network drive, NAS drive, or even the brand's cloud drive. Personally, we recommend selecting the cloud drive over a physical drive to store important backups due to its better accessibility, flexibility, and security.

To access the Tools Cloud, all you need is an email account for registration and login.

Step 6. If you're interested in an automatic and intelligent backup schedule for the next file backup task, proceed to the "Options" setting. Here, you can encrypt a confidential file backup, compress the backup image size, or customize a backup scheme to tell the software when to start the next backup.

Customize an advanced and automatic backup task here:

Step 7. Click "Backup Now" to initiate the file backup process. Your completed backups will be displayed in card format on the left pane.

1. #3. Run antivirus regularly to keep your PC and pen drive safe.

Conclusion – Your Deleted Pen Drive Files Are Important

On this page, we explained the causes of your pen drive loss issue and rounded up two reliable methods for pen drive data recovery – using third-party software or CMD.

• Method 1: Pen drive recovery software - Data Recovery Wizard enables you to recover deleted/formatted data in only 3 steps. It's a perfect tool for beginners.

2. Method 2: CMD - you can retrieve hidden files from your device.
3. Method 3: Data Recovery Service - you can retrieve USB files with the help of experts.

Notice that as long as your pen drive files matter, take action and recover deleted files from your pen drive immediately.