Share via

Accidentally turned my USB Flash drive into Windows 11 bootable drive and all things was erased

Anonymous
2023-11-25T15:20:04+00:00

Hello Microsoft

So i decided to make my flash drive an Windows 11 bootable drive but i didnt know that all your files and other things that was in flash drive will completety erase and flash drive storage will reduce in 2 times (from 64gb down to 32gb)

Is there any way to return everything back as it was before turning it into like that? If yes, please answer how and why

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

3 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Les Ferch 10,326 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2023-11-26T15:55:25+00:00

    Recovering much useful data is very unlikely. You have a partition change, a format (possibly with a change of file system), and a good chunk of the flash drive completely overwritten. In theory, there may be some sectors that contain some original data that hasn't been overwritten. If you had some text files with important data that doesn't exist elsewhere (like email or cloud storage) then it might be worth trying something like Recuva, because even a piece of a text file can be useful. Partial recovery of files in other formats (pictures, videos, Office files, etc.) are pretty much useless.

    Edit: I ran a test to try to replicate your scenario. Using Recuva, with the "deep scan" option, I was able to recover some complete files (JPGs in this case) that were in contiguous sectors that had not been overwritten.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Neil D 32,830 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2023-11-25T17:05:13+00:00

    You would need to use a 3rd party program to try and recover deleted files or partitions.

    Recuva is one Download Recuva | Recover deleted files, free! (ccleaner.com) but others are available when searching the internet.

    There is a warning on the Media Creation tool that all data will be deleted.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2023-11-25T16:07:51+00:00

    Hello, my name is Emmanuel, and I am an independent advisor. I'll be more than happy to assist you today!

    I am so sorry to hear that you are having an issue with the deleted files on your USB flash drive. To restore it, you may try following the steps below:

    1. Please connect your USB flash drive to your computer.
    2. Go to the search bar on the taskbar and then type in and search using the word CMD and then click Run as administrator.
    3. If you see a prompt message, "Do you want to allow this app to make changes in your device?" click Yes.
    4. In the Command Prompt window, please type "chkdsk X: /f" and hit Enter (disregard the quotation mark). Just make sure to replace “X” with the letter assigned to your USB flash drive.
    5. Next, kindly type "ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D X:*.*" and press the Enter key (again, replace “X” with the drive letter of the USB drive and disregard the quotation mark when typing in the command).
    6. Please wait until the process is completed. If this is successful, you should see your deleted files.

    I hope this information can help you.

    Let me know if this works for you.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments