They are a very popular and convenient means for storing and transferring information between computers. They are very reliable, can be rewritten many times, and are practically unaffected by external factors such as a magnetic field, the sun, and in many cases even moisture. However, from time to time the USB flash drive may experience problems. One of the most famous is that when the computer is connected, the computer starts to write that the disk needs formatting, and the flash drive itself does not want to open. When viewing the properties of the drive, its capacity is displayed as 0 bytes, and file system- RAW.

There are several ways to open a flash drive without formatting.

What to do in this case? Well, if important data is not stored on it, you can simply format it and safely use it further. But what if you can't delete the information? Is there a way out?

Fortunately, in most cases, the flash drive is damaged only at the software level, while physically the data continues to be recorded. A failure can occur for various reasons, most often due to the action of viruses, and also when the work was incorrectly completed during a recording or reading session, for example, you pulled the USB flash drive from the socket or the power was turned off.

There are several ways to regain access. We will discuss with you working methods and methods that will help you recover files on your portable drive. You only need to carefully follow the instructions.

The fastest, easiest and least painless way to regain access to files on a flash drive. To do this, you do not even need to download an additional software, so all operations will be performed using the command Windows strings. So, you are connecting the media to the USB connector, and instead of opening your files, you see a sign asking you to format the USB flash drive.

1. Click "No" if you really don't want to lose the recorded data.
2. Run command prompt as administrator. To do this, click the Start button, type cmd in the search bar, click on the utility in the search results right click mouse and select "Run as administrator". On Windows 10, you can select the appropriate item by right-clicking on the Start button.
3. After the jumping cursor after the address is displayed system folder and username, type the command chkdsk x: / f, where instead of x, specify the letter under which your flash drive is displayed in the system. Check this information in the file explorer. Click Enter to confirm and run.
4. Wait a couple of minutes for the utility to do its job. The final time will depend on the size and class of the flash drive, as well as the number of files.

If everything goes well, you will soon be able to view the contents of your portable drive. Just in case, copy the data to the computer's hard drive and, by formatting the USB flash drive, get rid of the remnants of problems.

It is worth noting that it is possible that a message in the form of “CHKDSK is not valid for RAW disks” may appear, which indicates the presence of more serious problems with your device.

Unfortunately, with such a development of events, it will be necessary to format the flash drive, but if data is stored on it, the safety of which is a priority, then you can try to restore them, which will be discussed a little later.

Virus check

A very common and fairly common reason that the system does not display the contents of the flash drive and asks to format it may be virus infection. For example, the so-called autorun virus turns all folders and files into shortcuts, hiding them, and some other viruses, in general, begin to require you to format the media and do not display its contents. Therefore, if checking the disk for errors did not lead to changes, perform a virus scan.

To do this, you will need a regular antivirus or a portable one. virus scanner. Any antivirus has the ability to scan the system down to a separate folder. In the settings, you need to specify your USB drive that needs to be formatted and wait for the procedure to complete. If you are using free antivirus and it missed the threat, download one of the free portable scanners. By the way, detailed overview we have already written about them on our website here in this article. Check out its content. Also, regularly monitor the security of your system so that you do not suffer from problems that arise.

Data recovery

Although in most cases the first two methods work without error, let's pretend that they did not help. In this case, you can try data recovery using software specially written for this purpose. There are such utilities. great amount. Consider the two most best programs: TestDisk and R-Studio. They are simple and very easy to understand. In the end, do not be too lazy to clean up, because the formatted drive no longer contains bad sectors. How to open a flash drive using each of the utilities?

Test Disk

1. Download the program from the official website of the developers - https://www.cgsecurity.org.
2. Insert the flash drive into the computer, when prompted to format, reject it.
3. Create a folder on your hard drive where the recovered files will be copied, unpack the downloaded program into it.
4. Launch the recovery application by double clicking on the photorec_win.exe file.
5. Use the arrow to select desired disk, press Enter.
6. Select the partition table type of your flash drive, again by moving through the list using the arrows. Press Enter to confirm.
7. Next, select the partition to restore. You will need a Whole Disk. Move the pointer using the arrows and press Enter.
8. Select file system type by ticking Other, which will mean FAT
9. Mark the folder where the recovered files will be copied. By default, the procedure you created at the very beginning is selected.
10. Click Y to start the process.
11. At the very end, go to the folder and view all the files that have been recovered.

R-studio

1. Download the utility from the official site, install it on your computer.
2. Open the main menu of the program, find your flash drive in the list of directories. It usually appears at the very bottom of the list.
3. Click the "Scan" button at the top of the screen, confirm the operation in the next window that opens.
4. Select the files you wish to restore and click the "Restore" button.
5. Wait until the end and go to the folder where the recovered information is stored.

Low level formatting

Quite a lengthy procedure, which can not be written in a few words. To do this, we have prepared a separate article on low-level formatting. In it, we painted the full cycle of actions, and also posted links to all the necessary utilities. You will succeed if you carefully read the material provided.

Conclusion

We hope that we have helped you solve the problem in which the contents of the flash drive do not open, and the system writes that it needs to be formatted. In the comments, we ask you to tell if the material of the article helped you.

A message saying that HDD asks to be formatted, cannot please any user, because in this case access to information cannot be obtained. The problem is widespread and, frankly, extremely unpleasant. About what it can cause and what solutions exist, and will be discussed below.
The problem with the inability to access information on the hard drive and the message that it needs to be formatted can be caused by various factors, such as wear and tear, write errors, improper disconnection or connection, and so on. If you have not yet figured out what caused the problem in work hard disk, then start with the very first recommendation and work your way down the list.

Ways to solve the problem with the hard drive

Below we will consider the main recommendations for troubleshooting the problem at work. hard drive, which can make it work again by removing the formatting message. The tips are sorted in ascending order of difficulty, and thus, if the hard drive has not completely failed, one of the tips should help you.

Method 1: Check the disk for errors

The most common cause of problems with hard drive is the occurrence of errors. Fortunately, Windows provides a special tool that allows you to scan the disk and automatically fix the problems found.

is running this tool from the command line. To do this, open the search bar and enter the query in it cmd(without quotes). Click on the result with the right mouse button and in the displayed context menu select item "Run as Administrator".

A command line window will appear on the screen, in which you will need to run the utility with the command:

Where a: is the letter of the hard drive that needs to be checked. For example, if the drive is displayed under the letter j in Explorer, then the command will look like this:

Performing a scan for errors is not a quick process, so be aware that the computer will need enough for a long time to be active. After scanning and fixing errors, you will need to restart your computer and check hard state disk.

Method 2: File Recovery

If checking the disk for errors did not bring any result, you should immediately try to perform the file recovery procedure, because the more actions you perform on the disk, the less likely it is to completely return the information previously contained on it.

There is a wide range of recovery software available. deleted files, among which I would like to highlight two programs: Recuva and R-STUDIO.

In the first case, the program is equipped with an understandable and user-friendly interface, which will allow you to start file recovery without any problems, while the second one is considered the most optimal for recovering information precisely when there are problems with the disk (and not during normal formatting, that is, when there were no problems with the hard drive). It is on the example R-STUDIO programs we will consider the further course of the process.

1. To do this, download the program from the official website of the developer using the link above and install it on your computer. Please note that the program should not be installed on the disk from which the files will be restored. Firstly, in this case, the probability of recovering files will be significantly reduced, and secondly, this can lead to unpredictable consequences.
2. Once the installation is successfully completed, if necessary, connect the problem disk to the computer, and then run the program. You will be greeted by a welcome window in which you will need to click on the button "Demo" to start the trial mode of using the program.

   

3. The R-STUDIO window will be displayed on the screen, in which you will need to select the disk with one click of the left mouse button, and then select the item in the program header "Scan".

   

4. A window for setting parameters will appear on the screen, in which nothing should be changed, but you must immediately click on the button "Scanning".

   

5. The progress of the process will begin, which will take time (depending on the size of the disk). You can track the readiness status at the bottom of the window.

   

6. Once the scan is complete, two partitions will appear below the drive from which you will need to choose "Found", and then to the right click on the button "Files found by information about typical features of their data structure".

   

7. Select the types of files that you want to recover, and then click on the appropriate button in the program header.

   

8. In the window that opens, in the field "In a folder" you will need to specify a location to save the restored copies of the files. We draw your attention to the fact that this should not be the disk from which the recovery procedure is performed. If necessary, change the default settings (you can leave them as default), and then click the button "Yes".

   

9. Once the restore is complete, you will find the files in the previously specified folder.
10. After successful file recovery, the disk can be safely formatted, that is, you can agree with the system's suggestion when you try to open it.

Method 3: low-level formatting

If the first two methods could not help you solve the problem with a formatting error when opening a hard drive, then, unfortunately, access to information was lost, but it is likely that you will return the drive to life if you perform a low-level formatting procedure.

To do this, we, again, turn to the help of third-party tools, namely, we will use the program HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool.

Please note that low-level formatting is not a fast process, which cannot be said about regular formatting. The procedure can drag on for many hours, so you should immediately be prepared for the fact that the computer will have to stay on for a very long time.

Once formatting is complete, it is more than likely that the hard drive will return to normal operation, but will be completely empty.

If none of the recommendations described in the article helped you solve the problem, it is worth assuming that the problem with the hard drive is much more serious, and there is already a physical malfunction here. In this case, it is better not to delay the trip to service center, where specialists will be able to diagnose and more accurately say what exactly went wrong in the hard drive, and whether it can be repaired at all.

Good day.

You work with a flash drive, work, and then bam .. and when it is connected to a computer, an error is displayed: “The disk in the device is not formatted ...” (example in Fig. 1). Although you are sure that the flash drive was previously formatted and had data on it ( backup files, documents, archives, etc.). So what's now?..

This can happen for many reasons: for example, when copying a file, you removed the USB flash drive from USB, or turned off the electricity while working with the USB flash drive, etc. In half of the cases, nothing happened to the data on the flash drive, and most of them can be recovered. In this article I want to consider what can be done to save data from a flash drive (and restore the performance of the flash drive itself).

1) Check Disk (Chkdsk)

If your flash drive started asking for formatting and you saw a message, as in fig. 1 - then in 7 out of 10 cases the standard check of the disk (flash drive) for errors helps. The program for checking the disk is already built into Windows - called Chkdsk (when checking the disk, if errors are found, they will be automatically corrected).

To check the disk for errors, launch the command line: either through the Start menu, or press the Win + R buttons, enter cmd command and press ENTER (see fig. 2).

Next enter the command: chkdsk i: /f and press ENTER (i: is your drive letter, note the error message in Figure 1). Then the disk check for errors should start (an example of work in Fig. 3).

After checking the disk - in most cases, all files will be available and you can continue working with them. I recommend making a copy of them right away.

Rice. 3. Checking the disk for errors.

By the way, sometimes administrator rights are required to run such a check. To run the command line as an administrator (for example, in Windows 8.1, 10) - just right-click on the START menu - and in the pop-up context menu select " Command line(Administrator)«.

2) Recovering files from a flash drive (if the check did not help ...)

If the previous step did not help restore the flash drive (for example, sometimes errors appear, like " file system type: RAW. chkdsk is not valid for RAW drives“), it is recommended (first of all) to restore all important files and data from it (if you don’t have them on it, you can proceed to the next step of the article).

In general, there are a lot of programs for recovering information from flash drives and disks, here is one of my articles on this topic:

After installing and launching the program, you will be prompted to select a disk (flash drive) and start scanning it (we will do this, see Fig. 4).

Next, a window with scan settings will open. In most cases, you can not change anything else, the program automatically selects the optimal parameters that will suit the majority. Then press the button to start scanning and wait for the process to complete.

The duration of the scan depends on the size of the flash drive (for example, a 16 GB flash drive is scanned on average in 15-20 minutes).

Important! You need to restore files not to the same flash drive that you scanned, but to another physical medium (for example, to a computer hard drive). If you restore files to the same media that you scanned, then the recovered information will overwrite sections of files that have not yet been recovered ...

Rice. 6. File recovery (R-STUDIO).

There, the points that were omitted in this section of the article are touched upon in more detail.

3) Low-level formatting to recover a flash drive

I want to warn you that you can’t download the first utility that comes across and format a flash drive with it! The fact is that each flash drive (even one manufacturer) can have its own controller, and if you format the flash drive with the wrong utility, you can simply disable it.

For unambiguous identification, there is special options: VID, PID. You can find them out with special utilities and then search suitable program for low-level formatting. This topic is quite extensive, so I will provide links to my previous articles here:

• - instructions for restoring the performance of a flash drive:
• - flash drive treatment:

That's all for me, good luck and fewer mistakes. Good luck!

For the addition on the topic of the article - thank you in advance.

Using portable storage media important information This is the mistake of many people. In addition to the fact that a flash drive can be easily lost, it can fail and valuable data will be lost. An example of this is the situation when it is not readable and asks to start formatting. How to access necessary files, we'll talk further.

Immediately clarify that we are talking about such an error, which is shown in the image below.


It usually occurs when the file system is broken, for example, due to incorrectly ejecting a USB flash drive. Although it does not work, its contents are not damaged in this case. To extract files, we use the following methods:

• program Handy Recovery;
• program ;
• Recuva program;
• chkdsk command.

It should be said right away that data recovery from a portable device does not always end in success. The probability that the above methods will work can be estimated at 80%.

Method 1: Handy Recovery

This utility is paid, but has a test period of 30 days, which will be enough for us.

To use Handy Recovery, do the following:

As you can see, using Handy Recovery is quite simple. If the error persists after the above procedures, use the following program.

Method 2: [email protected] File Recovery

Too paid application, but the demo version is enough for us.

Instructions for use [email protected] File Recovery looks like this:

Method 3: Recuva

This utility is free and is a good alternative to the previous options.

To use Recuva, do the following:

If you have any problems, you may find a solution in our article on using this program. And if not, write about them in the comments.

If no program sees the media, then you can format it in the standard way, but be sure to check "Quick (clearing the table of contents)" otherwise the data will not be returned. To do this, just click "Format" when an error occurs.

After that, the flash drive should be displayed.

Sometimes the computer won't open. external hard disk. Despite this, the device is quite successfully recognized by the system. This gives an error like: "For extracting files, formatting is required." It is clear that if you perform the proposed procedure, you will no longer be able to get the content, since as a result of formatting, all data is safely destroyed. What to do in this case?

How to open an external hard drive without formatting

Option 1

1. Open the Disk Management folder and check the status of the device you need. Most likely, it will be described as follows: "type: main, file system: RAW, healthy." This means that the file system has been corrupted in some way, and this is precisely the problem with reading data.
2. System recovery programs will help to correct the situation. Acronis Disc Director or RawRecovery, one of Easy Recovery's internal plugins, will do.
3. Install the selected program on your computer and enable scanning of the damaged device.
4. Start a file system restore.
5. After the manipulations, the content will be available for viewing and other actions.

Option 2

This method helps if the device is determined, it is possible to safely remove it, but it is not displayed in the explorer. The method will help if the cause of the problem is the lack of partitions on the hard drive. Everything is fixed by creating partitions, for this it is used standard remedy Windows:

1. Click the "Start" button and select the "Computer" tab in the main menu, then "Management".
2. In the drop-down menu that appears, click on the "Disk Management" tab. A window will open that describes the status hard drives: under the designation "Disk 0" hides the built-in hard drive, and under "Disk 1" - external. Opposite the latter, you will see the inscription "Unallocated".
3. Click on the inscription with the right mouse button, a menu will appear, the first line in which will be the command "Create a simple volume ...". Choose this command.
4. The Simple Volume Wizard window appears. From this point on, you need to follow the instructions of the system, or, more simply, press the "Next" button.
5. After completing the wizard, the data you need will immediately be displayed in the Explorer folder.

What to do so that the problem does not reoccur

The easiest way to avoid data corruption on your hard drive is to properly remove the device from your computer. How it's done:

1. After the final download of files to the device's memory, find the USB connection icon external hard disk with a computer.
2. Hover over it and right-click.
3. In the context menu that appears, select " Safe extraction devices."
4. Wait for the system to respond, after which you can disconnect the connection cable.

This simple rule neglected by many users and as a result they have to deal with data corruption.

You may also find it useful to read our article.