'You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it'- Help

PURAV96 · 31 Oct 2012

Hi
I have an ASUS U53JC running windows 7 64 bit and I have a corsair 32GB USB 3.0 USB stick and I used it yesterday to put some music on and went to a friends iMac and plugged it in and it said that it wasnt compaitable and that it had to be formatted so I cancelled it and took it out.
Today I plugged it into my ASUS and it came up with the error message
'You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it'
and I tried it on another PC and it did the same.
What can I do because I have some work that needs to be in for Monday 5th November 2012? Should I re-do it or is there a solution?

Mark Phelps · 31 Oct 2012

Sorry to tell you this, but your USB stick is likely to be trashed. You need a tool that can find files on the stick without having to use the partition record.

I've had reasonably good luck in recovering data from USB sticks using RecoverMyFiles from Runtime Software. You can download their trial for free and at least see what it finds. You can then purchase a license online to recover the data.

PURAV96 · 01 Nov 2012

Thanks for the quick reply.
I ran the software you said a few times and it found nothing.
I posted a thread on another forum and someone told me to use: chkdsk on the command prompt. I've heard that this can cause some damage so I'm not sure whether to use it or not?

Thanks

Layback Bear · 01 Nov 2012

Have you tried just formatting the memory stick? If that works your stick will be clean and ready for the important work.