How to Unformat Flash Drive – Undo Format USB Flash Drive

There are dozens of reasons to format a flash drive, either for hardware or software issues. Formatting is a simple way to fix these problems.

• Intentionally or unintentionally format the flash drive.
• The USB flash drive displays as RAW or Media/Drive is not formatted, would you like to format now?
• You can’t open the flash drive though it is shown on your computer
• It is affected by the virus, and you need to clean it up for security reason
• You connect the flash drive to the computer, finding it is corrupted or can’t recognize your flash drive…

Formatting is quite simple. You right-click on the flash drive and select "Format" on the menu, and it’s done and done. However, formatting results in data loss. If there are some important files, like reports, presentations, thesis, then you need to unformat flash drive in Windows or Mac.

Is it Possible to Unformat a Flash Drive in Windows 11/10/7 or Mac?

Can I recover files from a formatted flash drive? For sure, you can. Here is the theory of unformatting flash drive. The formatting only marks all data on the flash drive as deleted, making the space available for new data. However, if no new data is added in, the original files are still there, but invisible. In this case, you need to unformat USB flash drive on Mac or Windows, sooner the better. Otherwise, it will be failed to get data back from a formatted flash drive.

Before unformat flash drive in Windows 11/10/8/7 and macOS, please keep in mind that do not use it after you realize you need to unformat it. Otherwise, part of data will be erased permanently, you unable to resume files from formatted flash drive. So, Please keep it still until you follow the below steps to unformat USB drive on Mac or Windows.

Unformat Flash Drive to Get Formatted USB Flash Drive Data

You can’t unformat a flash drive without any format recovery software or techniques. Here I strongly recommend you try iBeesoft Data Recovery. It is a simple and safe unformat flash drive tool that can help you quickly recover data from a formatted USB flash drive. It is specially designed for people to solve the unformatting task. With it, you can easily restore formatted flash drive in less than 10 minutes. Here are unformat USB drive software main features:

Step-by-step to Unformat USB Flash Drive on Windows PC/Mac.

1. Download and install unformat USB flash drive tool

You need to download the .exe/dmg file of iBeesoft Data Recovery. Install it on your computer. It has no problem for compatibility with Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Mac. Feel free to use it. It is virus free and safe.

2. Connect your flash drive with computer

Insert your flash drive to the USB slot to connect it with your computer. Don’t do anything on it but make sure it is connected with computer successfully. Don’t open the flash drive as well. Just keep it connected.

3. Click "go to setting" to select file types you need
4. Select flash drive to scan

In the new window, you’re supposed to select the formatted flash drive you have connected to scan since you want to unformat it. Select it and click the "Scan" button on the top of the main window.

5. Preview recoverable files

After the scanning process, the result is displayed in the window. All files are sorted into categories. To find a specific file, you need to unfold the category directory, find the file and preview it.

6. Select the erased files to save

If it is the one you need, select it and click "Recover" to save it to your computer. Don’t save the recovered data back to the flash drive again due to the secure reason. If you save them to the flash drive, they may get erased again.