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I have a old USB drive 2.0. When plugged in, it gives an error " You need to format the disk in the drive" I tried various troubleshooting methods online.

1) Uninstalled and reinstalled the usb drivers manually and also using software then rebooted- still the same error. 2) Updated BIOS settings of my OS - Still the same error. 3) Tried, data recovery tool "Recuva" this does not detect the drive.

I need data from it and this drive possibility might be encrypted. Please suggest me all the possibilities.

Format error when plugged in

USB doesn't showup in Disk Management

SECTEST oncu
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    Is this a hard drive or flash drive? Encryption wouldn't affect whether it sees the drive. It sounds more like the drive died. – fixer1234 Dec 06 '18 at 01:54
  • what should I do to retrieve data from the drive if the drive is dead ? – SECTEST oncu Dec 06 '18 at 17:28
  • Is this a hard drive or flash drive? – fixer1234 Dec 06 '18 at 20:07
  • Its a flash drive – SECTEST oncu Dec 06 '18 at 23:21
  • If you're lucky, this link may help: https://superuser.com/questions/871850/usb-flash-drive-not-working-or-is-appearing-as-an-empty-disk-drive-disk-managem. See also: https://supertechuser.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/corrupted-no-media-fake-usb-drive/. That's pretty much the state of knowledge, so if those solutions don't work, hopefully you have a backup (which you should always have for a thumb drive because they are unreliable, disposable devices). – fixer1234 Dec 06 '18 at 23:50

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Here is the thing, if you don't know whether it is encrypted, I assume you don't know the key it would be encrypted with. If that is the case, the data cannot be recovered without breaking the encryption or brute-forcing the key/password. It is impossibly unlikely you would be able to recover the data in this case.

If it is not encrypted, you could try to make an image of the whole drive and then examine it for example in hex or by a specialized tool, that may be able to distinguish, what filesystem it used and whether it was damaged and move from there. This method may also indicate to you whether the drive is encrypted or irreversibly damaged.

Peter Harmann
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  • I tried to clone the drive using DD tool on linux. But, I need the name of the usb which I did not find using commands like lsusb, lsblk etc. But, I can see this USB plugged in diskpart. Can you think of any other way to clone? –  Dec 05 '18 at 19:18
  • What about `sudo lshw | less`? Alternatively try https://askubuntu.com/a/289137 (the `ls /dev/` one) – Peter Harmann Dec 05 '18 at 19:42
  • Found it. it says " *-usb:1 Description: Mass storage device, Product, vendor etc." what do you think the name is ? –  Dec 05 '18 at 19:55
  • @SECTESToncu well the command probably does not give a name, but at least we know the OS detects it and it knows it is a mass storage drive. I would assume the name is going to be something like hdb1 or what, but you can try to confirm by doing the linked process (`ls -l /dev/* | wc -l` with and without the USB plugged in and looking for the difference) https://askubuntu.com/a/289137 – Peter Harmann Dec 05 '18 at 20:00
  • when I executed the command when usb plugged in, "ls -l /dev/* | wc -l" output:"377" and when i removed, the output was "376" then I re-plugged USB then the output was 381. I am not entirely sure what this means. Can you make anything out of it ? – SECTEST oncu Dec 05 '18 at 23:51
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    In Linux, Disks (`gnome-disk-utility`) or `lsblk` might be the easiest to see when a new drive's been added, and what it's device label is (and size, to help verify you're looking at the right one). And look at `dmesg` and the syslog (`/var/log/syslog`) after connecting it. If no device shows up in lsblk or `/dev/` then it's probably just broken. – Xen2050 Dec 06 '18 at 13:25
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Windows is not as good at this as linux, in my honest experience. I highly suggest you plug the drive into a Linux operating system (ubuntu, for example) and see if it just auto recognizes it. If it doesn't there are a multitude of tools to help you on linux. These for example:

https://www.maketecheasier.com/recover-data-linux-tools/

bashCypher
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  • Yep, I also tried in Linux but, the main point it, we need this drive to be identified with a specific name like "sdb" to use data recovery tools. And that is the problem now. I cannot get the name of the USB. – SECTEST oncu Dec 05 '18 at 23:21
  • even in linux it's not recognized? That's a bad sign as tells me that you could have an issue with the partition table scheme? When you plug it into linux it won't recognize it all? gparted or fdisk shows nothing? Can you post a pic? – bashCypher Dec 06 '18 at 19:45
  • gpart does recognize and lsusb as well. But, lsblk doesn't. – SECTEST oncu Dec 06 '18 at 23:21
  • Huh, no block device but gparted see's it? That seems wrong... but all of this seems wrong. I provided multiple recovery tools in that link; I'd try all of them. If they don't work you need to take it to someone to reverse engineer the problem, or cut your losses. Let me know if the forensic tools work. – bashCypher Dec 07 '18 at 01:08
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Looks like the partition has been changed. Try accessing the disk using diskpart.

  • Under Diskpart I used "list disk" command and it only shows my harddrive. But, I can see USB device under Control pannel --> Devices and printers section. And under Device Management --> Universal Serial Bus Controllers --> USB Mass Storage Device shows Yellow triangle mark(Warning) on it. –  Dec 05 '18 at 19:31