In this article, you will see different methods to recover deleted photos from a flash drive. Have your photos on a USB drive become inaccessible? Concerned about losing them forever? Searching for ways to get them back? You’ve come to the right place.

Photos capture memorable moments of our lives, but losing them from any storage device (like a USB flash drive) can feel like a disaster. Whether they have captures from an important project, memories from a family event, or snapshots from vacations, no one of us wants to lose them.

In this read, we will present different methods to help you learn how to recover deleted photos from flash drives.

Part 1. Common Causes of Losing Photos from a USB/Pen Drive

Before getting into the details of recovering deleted photos from a pen drive, let’s first understand the potential causes behind photo loss.

1. Accidental Deletion: It is one of the common causes of losing your photos.

2. Hardware Damage: USB drives are small and fragile data storage devices, which can be damaged, even with a little carelessness.

3. Improper Ejection: If you remove a USB drive from your computer, it may interrupt the read/write process. As a result, the USB drive may be corrupted.

4. Power Loss: A sudden power loss while transferring your data may interrupt the whole process. Ensure to have a backup power source to avoid this issue.

5. Malware: Malicious tools or apps can make your photos on the USB drive inaccessible by deleting or hiding them. Install a trusted anti-virus program to deal with this issue.

6. Formatting Error: There can be human errors while formatting USB hard drives. The nature of the mistake decides the severity of data loss from the USB flash drive.

Part 2. Recover Deleted Photos from a Flash Drive with a Third-Party Tool

Accidentally deleted precious photos from your USB drive? Don’t panic—Wondershare Recoverit can help you get them back in just a few clicks. As a leading free data recovery software, Recoverit boasts a 99.5% success rate and supports the recovery of 1,000+ file types, including photos, videos, and documents, from 2,000+ storage devices like USB drives, SD cards, external hard drives, and even crashed computers. Whether your files were lost due to accidental deletion, formatting, or corruption, Recoverit’s advanced scanning technology ensures a high recovery chance. Plus, it includes video and photo repair tools to fix damaged media files.

Follow these simple steps to restore your lost photos from a USB drive:

Step 1: Download and Install Recoverit

Begin by downloading Wondershare Recoverit data recovery from its official website and installing it on your Windows or Mac computer. Once installed, launch the software to start the recovery process.

Step 2: Select Your USB Drive for Scanning

Connect your USB drive to your computer. In Recoverit main interface, go to the “SD Card” section. Select your USB drive from the list and click “Scan” to begin scanning for lost files.

Step 3: Scan and Preview

Recoverit will first run a quick scan to locate recently deleted files. If your photos aren’t found, it will start the “Deep Scan” mode for a more thorough search. Once the scan is complete, you can preview the recoverable photos by clicking on thumbnails. Use the filter option to sort files by type (e.g., JPEG, PNG) for easier selection.

Step 4: Recover and Save

After selecting the photos you want to restore, click “Recover”. To prevent overwriting any remaining data, save the recovered files to a different location (such as your computer’s hard drive) instead of the original USB drive.

Part 3. More Tips to Recover Deleted Photos from a Pen Drive Free

If you are searching for how to recover deleted photos from a USB flash drive, this section presents various methods to restore your lost or deleted photos without compromising their original quality.

1. Use CMD

The command prompt is a built-in tool in Windows computers. Along with performing many other operations, it also enables you to make your inaccessible photos visible on the pen drive. All you need to do is enter a few commands. This is an effective method to recover deleted photos from a corrupted USB flash drive. Here is how to recover deleted photos from a pen drive for free.

Step 1: Connect the USB flash drive to your laptop or computer.

Step 2: Type “cmd” in the Windows search bar and open the command prompt.

Step 3: Enter the “chkdsk X: /f” command.

Step 4: Now, type the “ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D X:*.*” command to restore your hidden photos on a pen drive.

Step 5: It is time to exit the command prompt. Then, open your USB drive to access your photos.

2. Use Windows File Recovery

This data recovery application was released by Microsoft. It comes with Windows 10 (version 2004 or later). It allows you to get your deleted photos back from any USB flash drive. This tool does not have a Graphical User Interface (GUI); instead, it uses various commands to perform certain functions. Here is how you can recover deleted photos from a pendrive using the Windows File Recovery tool.

Step 1: Go to the Microsoft Store and download Windows File Recovery.

Step 2: Now, connect your pen drive to your system. Then, memorize the drive letter assigned to your USB.

Step 3: Open CMD or Windows Terminal as an administrator.

Step 4: Type the “Winfr X: D: /extensive” command. Replace X with the drive letter assigned to your pen drive and D with the letter assigned to your storage device where you want to save the restored photos.

Step 5: Wait for a while until the Windows File Recovery app completes the photo restoration process.

This application supports various data loss scenarios to recover deleted photos from flash drives, such as corrupted drives, formatting, accidental deletion, and the list continues.

3. Restore Previous Versions

It is another Windows built-in tool that lets you restore deleted photos from a flash drive without using any third-party application. This feature comes in Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11. Remember, this feature will only work if you have enabled the File History before your photos were lost from your USB drive.

If this feature is not enabled, you may experience permanent photo loss. Follow the steps below to recover deleted photos from a pendrive using the Restore Previous Versions.

Step 1: Open the Windows Control Panel.

Step 2: Tap on the Save backup copies of your files with the File History option under System and Security. This is how you can access previous versions in the latest Windows version.

Step 3: Go to the left menu and hit the Restore personal files option. Now, you will be able to see available backups, as shown below.

Step 4: It is time to navigate to the folder or library where a USB drive was previously added.

Step 5: Search for available backup versions and choose the pictures you want to get back from your USB flash drive.

Step 6: Once you select the images you want to recover, hit the Restore button (A circular, green arrow).

Final Words

Don’t be concerned if your photos are deleted or lost from the USB flash drive, as you can restore them most of the time without spending a cent. For example, you can use CMD, Windows File History, or Restore Previous Versions for free photo recovery.

If they don’t work, a bit of patience and the use of the right tools (like Recoverit) help you restore your deleted pictures within minutes.

FAQs

What is the best USB drive recovery tool?

Though the market offers a couple of options, such as tools like PhotoRec and Recuva, Recoverit stands tall due to its reliability, transparency, and robustness.

Is it safe to use free image recovery software?

Yes, the tools like PhotoRec, Recuva, and Recoverit are completely safe to use only if you download them from their official websites.

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