The most common means of transferring data from one PC to another is through the use of flash memory. These units are small devices with flash memory. These flash drives include a range of portable drives ranging from a pen drive, memory cards, a hybrid or SSD drive, or an external drive.
They are the most widely used practical units and can be easily portable. But have you ever faced a situation where your flash drive lost all data just because it got infected with virus?
Losing this data can suddenly cause a lot of damage to your work files and somehow affect or slow down your work in case you don’t know how to get those files back from your pen drive or other flash drives. In this article, you will learn how to recover those data from flash drives.
How to recover files from a virus infected Pen Drive (2023)
Method 1: Recover deleted files using command prompt
It is possible that with a small script and steps you can recover your data with flash memory, pen drives or hard drives without any software. This is simply using the CMD (Command Prompt). But, it does not guarantee that you will perfectly recover all your lost data. Still, you can try these steps as a free and easy method.
Follow these steps to recover deleted files using Command Prompt:
1. Plug your flash drive into your system.
2. Wait for the system to detect your flash drive.
3. Once the device is detected, press Windows Key + R. A run dialog box will appear.
4. Type the command $ 0027cmd $ 0027 and press Enter.
5. Type or copy and paste the command: “chkdsk G: / f” (without quotes) in the command line window and press Enter.
Note: Here, $ 0027G $ 0027 is the drive letter associated with the pen drive. You can substitute this letter for the mentioned disk letter for your Pen Drive.
6. Press $ 0027Y $ 0027 to continue when the new command line appears in the command window.
7. Re-enter the letter of your Pen Drive and press Enter.
8.Then type the following command in cmd and press Enter:
G:> attrib -h -r -s / s / d *. *
Note: You can replace the letter G with the letter of your disk, which is associated with your Pen Drive.
9. As all recovery processes complete, you can now navigate to that specific drive. Open that drive and you will see a new folder. There it will search for all virus infected data.
In case this process is not capable enough to recover files from a virus infected USB drive, then follow the second method to recover them from your flash drive.
Method 2: Use data recovery software to recover deleted files
The third party application that is popular for data recovery from virus infected hard drives and pen drives is “FonePaw Data Recovery”. It is an alternative to CMD file and a data recovery tool to recover your files from portable or removable drives infected with viruses.
1. Go to the website and download the application.
2. Once downloaded, install the application and run it.
Note: Make sure you are not installing the data recovery software on the drive (disk partition) whose data you want to recover.
3. Now connect the external disk or flash drive that is infected by a virus.
4. You will notice that this data recovery software will detect the USB drive once you plug in the pen drive.
5. Choose the type of data (such as audios, videos, images, documents) you want to recover, and then also select the drive.
6. Now click on the “Scan” button to perform the quick scan.
Note: There is also another option for a deep scan.
7. Once the scan is complete, you can preview it to see if the files being scanned for recovery are the same files you are looking for. If yes, press the “Recover” button to recover the lost files.
With this method, you can successfully recover the deleted files from the hard disk and if this method does not work, try the following method to recover files from a virus infected pen disk.
Also read: How to repair a damaged SD card or USB memory
Method 3: There are situations where files can also be hidden on purpose.
1. Press Windows key + R and type “folder control”
2. A File Explorer window will appear.
3. Go to the View tab and touch the radio button associated with the option “Show hidden files, folders and drives”.
With this method you can see the hidden files on your hard drive.
That’s all, you have successfully learned how to recover files from a virus infected pen drive. But if you still have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section.