Then, click the Byte-to-byte Backup button to create a disk image. On the left sidebar, click the Drive Backup button.Launch Disk Drill by double-clicking its icon on your desktop.This way, we can set aside your bad drive and avoid worsening the problem. Step 1 of formatting your malfunctioning drive without losing data is to create an image backup that we can use as a recovery target. If you want to know more about this software before installing it on your system, you can read our in-depth Disk Drill review. Power outages can also interrupt the read/write process, which often leads to corruption. Fortunately, you can format your USB without losing data (we’ll show you how). If you don’t properly eject your USB or external hard drive before disconnecting it, you can interrupt the read/write process and cause corruption. For example, APFS+ (Apple format) does not work on Windows – you’ll have to convert it to FAT32, exFAT, or NTFS first. Your file system may be incompatible with your device or OS. A format wipes everything – including viruses and infected files. If your device is severely infected, antivirus programs may not be enough. You can try alternative methods to fix an external hard drive that’s not showing up. If your damaged drive is not recognized by your device, there’s no need to resort to a format immediately. Note that you can recover your external hard drive without formatting even if you get errors. missing data, file errors, formatting prompts), formatting your drive can fix the bad partitions or corrupted files. In the case of a malfunctioning hard drive (for ex. In either case, you’ll need to use data recovery software. Or maybe you formatted your drive without knowing about the data loss. In case of a damaged drive, you may get an error message or format prompt right as you connect it, which is easy to accidentally click. You may want to free up storage space or sell/give away your drive. Or you might want to format your SD card (without losing data) from FAT32 to exFAT so it can store files larger than 4GB. For example, it might be incompatible with your device or OS (operating system). There are a few reasons to change your file system. Use the table to figure out if you have a healthy or damaged drive so you can choose the correct method in the following section. The method you’ll use depends on whether your drive is healthy or malfunctioning – but this might not be intuitively obvious if you aren’t familiar with formatting.īelow are all the possible situations or reasons that require you to perform a format. There are two methods to format your disk without losing data. What Are the Reasons to Format Your Hard Drive? However, you will still need special software to restore your files, and there are a few more steps you need to do before and after formatting to completely secure your data.īut first, you need to determine the condition of your drive to find out which method is best for your situation. A quick format only marks your data to be overwritten by new files – it doesn’t immediately erase your data (by overwriting it with zeroes) as a full format does.Īs long as you use quick format, you can reformat a drive without losing files. A full format permanently deletes everything on the drive by writing zeroes all over your data. However, there are two types of formatting you can perform in this case: full format and quick format. If you want to change your external hard drive’s file system (or recreate one), you need to format it. Can you Reformat an (External) Hard Drive Without Losing Data? Prefer diving straight into the guide without the theory? Click here. Yet in the case of a corrupted or infected drive, formatting might be your only option. You’ve probably found a lot of ways on the internet to format your hard drive – the only problem is that they all lead to data loss. Can I format the entire computer without losing data?.Can I reformat a hard drive without losing data on a Mac?.Is it really possible to recover data after the format?.Does formatting the hard drive delete everything permanently?.Step 3: Retrieve Your Data from Backup or a Safe Place.
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