How to protect your data on USB drive and recover the lost files?

USB drive is tiny and easy to use to transfer data from different computers. While improper way to use is easy to cause data loss on it, and even damage the device. This article will show you how to avoid data loss and data corruption on the USB drive.

1. Disable AutoRun feature in Windows

AutoRun is a windows feature by default,which allows program to run from the external devices as soon as they connected with computer, such as the DVD and flash drive. While the malware or virus can exploit this feature to spread. Therefore, to protect your data from USB drive, you need to disable this feature to avoid infections from malware.

How to disable AutoRun in Windows?

Generally, there are two ways to disable the AutoRun. The first is to edit the Windows Registry, the other solution is to use a program. Edit the registry may be a difficult for most of us, you’d better use a software to disable the auto run feature.

2. Run antivirus software to scan the USB drive

Even if you have disabled the AutoRun, your flash drive is still possible to infected by virus. If you install an antivirus software to scan the flash drive automatically, your computer will not be infected by the virus carried by flash drive. You also can run the antivirus software to scan the device automatically. Go to My Computer, find the flash drive and right-click it to choose Scan selected files with, to scan the possible virus.

3. Do not edit the documents directly in the falsh drive

Many people tend to edit files in the flash drive, but this actions is easy to have data corruption or data loss. The correct way is to create or edit them on the desktop and then drag them to the flash drive after done.

4. Safely remove the flash drive from your computer

To make things easier, many people will unplug their flash drive by force. Most of time, this action will not bring damage to their data and device. But it is an improper way to remove the device which may cause serious data loss, and even damage the USB drive.  Whenever you connect the flash drive to the computer, you need to remove it safety. Find your flash drive in the taskbar, right-click this icon and choose Eject Mobile Disk. If you still have some files on the flash drive not closed, it will prompt you to close them before you can Eject the disk.

How to recover lost files from the flash drive?

If you have followed the above ways, your data loss on flash drive will be greatly reduced. If you lost data due to accidental deletion, you should connect it to computer, and then run a Windows data recovery software to retrieve them at the first time. To avoid data overwritten, you should avoid writing new data to the flash drive after data loss.

How to Restore a Deleted File From flash drive?