USB has become FAT32 and has nothing on it

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

Let me ask you;

• Did you change the file system to FAT32?

All flash drives, are formatted as FAT32 when they are manufactured. Unless you changed it to NTFS, it was FAT32. There can be a possibility that it has now changed back to FAT32 from NTFS and has no data on it.

This is probably a case of unassigned drive (USB drive). You may try assigning drive letter and check if it works.

1. Right click on My Computer icon.
2. click on Manage.
3. Go to "Disk management"/Removable devices & assign a Drive letter to it manually.
4. Right click on the drive without a Letter & click on "Change Drive Letter and Paths..."
5. Click on "Change".
6. Assign an alphabet.
7. Click on OK.

You may also try using the same USB to another PC and check if it works so you can back up the data if it still has.

Hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to reply in case you face any other issues with Windows in future.

Thank you for replying. I have never touched the formatting properties for my USB so I do not know if it was originally FAT32 or NTFS. I've tried it on multiple computers and it keeps showing me the same thing. The only computer I haven't tried it on is my own, therefore I haven't been able to follow the steps that you stated above, as the computers here on campus won't let me make any administrative changes. Is there any hope of recovering all of the data that I had on there or should I just make peace that it's gone..? Also, it won't let me save anything new to the USB, so I'm also curious as to why it won't let me..?

Hi,

I sure can understand the urgency of getting the data back. However, trying the steps provided earlier on  your own machine may help you get the data back. Kindly give it a try and check if it works.

We cannot guarantee data recovery from the flash drive.

Kindly confirm.

Sorry, Deleted*