How to recover files from a corrupted flash drive

At the same time that the creation of the pendrive made it much easier for people to transport personal files from one computer to another, it also created new problems for users, and it is not uncommon for these accessories to have problems that make you lose all their content – ​​and it may not be that easy to recover lost files.

Therefore, here are some tips on what you can do to try to recover files that have been lost on a pendrive (or any other external storage device) that can help you in times of greatest need.

“Invisible” Virus

This is a very common problem encountered by people who need to print some file, do not have a printer at home and need to go to public places to do this printing, such as lan houses or print shops. You take the pendrive working to do the printing, it is accessed and printed normally, but after you try to connect it to another computer you realize that all the files on it have been turned into “shortcuts” and you can't access anything else.

This happens because of a type of virus that is very common on these types of public computers, and that infects your pendrive as soon as you open any file on the machine that has it. Despite being something very annoying, most of these viruses do not delete your files (if you right-click on the drive that represents your pendrive and choose the “Properties” option, you will notice that it is not empty) , but simply “hides” all the actual files stored there.

Solve this problem in Windows 10 It's relatively simple: 

First, you must access the “File Explorer Options” application (which can be found by typing this name into the Windows search bar). When accessing this application, choose the “View” tab and scroll down to the “Hidden files and folders” option, then select “Show hidden files and folders” and click the “OK” button to exit saving the file. change.

Once this is done, enter the pendrive and delete all shortcuts that were created by the virus (be careful not to delete the real files). The next step then is to leave the files themselves as unhidden (the previous step allows you to view only the folders), and for that you will need to enter the “Command Prompt” application, which can be found in the Start menu list or by searching for the name in the Windows search bar.

Inside it, you will need to type the letter relative to the drive designated by the computer for your flash drive (in this example, the flash drive will be indicated as drive “D”) and, inside the command prompt, type the drive letter followed by a colon (in the case of the image example, the command used was “D:”) and then press the “Enter” key.

Enter this line of code to force the USB stick to show all hidden files on it

The next step is to type the line of code “attrib -r -s -h /s /d D:\*.*” (without the quotes). You need to obey the exact spacing of this line (that is, if two characters are together, they need to be together, and if there is a space between them, you need to give this space in the prompt) and also remember to change the “D:” by the drive letter relative to your pendrive if it has another identification.

After completing these steps, all the files that were hidden on the pendrive should be ready to be accessed, and then to remove the virus from the accessory, you can run an antivirus to try to eliminate the threat or simply copy all its files to yours. computer and completely format the flash drive.

Recover files with iBeesoft Data Recovery

iBeesoft Data Recovery is an option to try to recover lost files

Now, it could happen that a virus actually formatted your flash drive and erased all your files – and luckily, you didn't have a backup of them anywhere. In this case, the only possible solution is to try using one of these file recovery programs – and a good solution in this case is iBeesoft Data Recovery.

Developed by iBeesoft, the program is a good option to try recover files lost not only on the pendrive, but also on external hard drives, memory cards and even on the computer itself. One of the advantages of the program is that it can recover all the most common types of files, being able to restore from PDFs and text documents to music and videos.

Using the program is easy, as it has a very intuitive interface: when you open the program, the initial screen will allow you to choose the type of file you want to recover. So you can decide whether the program will focus on trying to recover text, video, audio files or it will try to recover all types it can find.

On the home screen, you can choose the type of file you want to try to recover

After selecting the type of file that will be recovered, the next step is to choose which of the storage devices the program will check. Here, you must select the drive relative to the pendrive, external HD or any other where the file you lost and want to recover was.

On this screen you must choose the drive where the lost file was

With the chosen drive, the program will check and show you which folders and files it was able to find for recovery. In this step, you can check if the file you want to recover was found by the program. If the file was found by the program, just press the “Recover Now” button to start the recovery.

The program allows you to view which folders and files it managed to find in order to attempt recovery

After pressing the button, a new window will open for you to choose where you want the recovered files to be saved. At this point you can choose to save them in some folder on your computer, or even in some other external device, such as an SD memory card.

On this screen you can choose where the program will save the recovered files

Once you've chosen the location where you want these files to be saved, just wait for the program to do its “magic” and recover the files it managed to find. This process can take a while depending on the complexity of what is being recovered, so it is normal for the program to spend several minutes working until it completes the operation.

Despite being very simple to use, it is necessary to mention some “but” of iBeesoft Data Recovery. The first one is that the program is not free: you can download it for free from official website of the product and proceed to the step of verifying which files can be recovered without paying anything, but to perform the recovery itself it is necessary to buy a license for the program. The company offers several plan options, but unfortunately all of them are in dollars – which can make even the cheapest plan a little salty.

Another “but” is the fact that any recovery program cannot guarantee 100% effectiveness. So, it is possible that the file you want to recover is not found by it, or even that it is found but there are not enough traces left to do a full recovery, and the “recovered” version of it comes out with errors or corrupted. Therefore, we recommend using these file recovery programs as a “last alternative” if you have no other way to recover a lost file.

use the cloud

Creating a habit of making backups in the cloud is the easiest way to protect yourself from problems with file loss on physical devices

The simplest and fastest way to recover lost files from a flash drive or any other storage location is to always have a cloud backup of that file. There is no shortage of free cloud storage options, and the use of this technology eliminates all the hassle involved in losing an important file, as it can be easily recovered on virtually any device that has an internet connection.