Summary: Have you come across a situation where you connect a USB to your computer, it gets detected, but when you try to open it, an error pops up — ‘Please Insert Disk into Removable Disk’? Read this post to learn how to recover your photos, videos, or audio files from USB drive that shows ‘insert disk’ error.
USB sticks are portable, easy-to-use, and offer more space to store multimedia files. That said, USBs can often become quite troublesome when unexpected errors hamper their usual working. But, the good news is, if you’re aware of the causes of those errors, you can bring the faulty USBs back on track in no time and recover your photos, audios or videos. In this post, we will focus on a common USB error — ‘please insert a disk into USB drive’.
To fix the issue, you try to format or partition the USB but both options typically fail to work. Also, when you view the USB’s properties, the ‘Used space’ and ‘Free space’ on the drive are shown as 0 bytes.
The insert disk error message appears when your USB flash drive or pen drive is inaccessible or unreadable by Windows due to any of the below reasons:
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One way to recover the USB photos, videos, or audio files is by fixing the disk error with the help of the methods shared below. You can also directly use a USB drive recovery software that can restore lost media files in such situation.
While troubleshooting, you may have to format your USB drive to make it usable again. While, to recover lost photos and videos from a formatted USB, you can always use the software solution mentioned here.
Note: Before you try any of these fixes, make sure that the first boot device for your computer isn’t your USB drive. You can check and alter the boot device priority by going to setup (connect USB and restart the computer; press ‘Del’ or F2 to enter Setup).
1. Use different USB port
2. Try heating up or cooling the drive manually
3. Use reliable third-party software to recover
4. Update Windows Driver
5. Assign a unique drive letter to the USB
6. Reinstall Drivers
7. Try using the manufacturer’s repair utility
8. Scan Hardware changes
9. Fix USB Drive insert disk error using Diskpart
10. Format the USB Drive
The problem might be due to a faulty USB port. Try to connect your drive with alternative port on your computer. If your system doesn’t have another port, try to access your USB on a different computer.
Heating or cooling the USB is a hack that you may try. This is not a sure-shot solution but it works sometimes.
Stellar Photo Recovery helps you recover photos and other multimedia files from damaged / faulty USB drives. This smart photo recovery tool restores photos and media lost due to formatting, accidental deletion, physical damage or corruption of hard drives, memory cards, external storage devices, digital cameras and USB sticks. It works perfectly with a variety of picture, audio and video formats and can scan devices having a storage capacity of over 5TB. You can recover your multimedia files and keep backup in a separate location in order to access those files.
Simply download Stellar Photo Recovery and follow the below mentioned steps to recover multimedia files:
Watch this video to recover with Stellar Photo Recovery:
Note: If the recovery software is not able to detect your USB drive, then try the below methods to fix the issue and access your files.
Ensure your PC drivers are updated. Driver updates for Windows 10 are automatically downloaded and installed through Windows Update. Go to Settings on your computer and check for updates.
Some USB manufacturers such as Transcend and HP, provide repair utilities on their websites that can be used to fix a few known issues with their USB drives. They are helpful when your flash drive is no longer recognized by PC or not working properly. Such utilities make use of the Internet and manufacturer’s proprietary algorithms to solve issues.
Simply download the utility from the website and run the executables, as directed.
Note: Most of the time, the manufacturer’s USB repair utility in an attempt to fix USB drive may restore it to factory default settings, which may lead to data loss. In such a scenario, you can use Stellar Photo Recovery software to recover USB media files.
Insert the USB drive in the removable drive before you start your computer. However, make sure that the first boot device in BIOS is not USB drive, else computer may not boot.
Corrupt USB drivers can also cause problem in detecting the flash drive. Try by reinstalling the USB drivers via Device Manager.
Note: You can also do the same for all the listed USB drivers.
The USB drivers will automatically get installed by Windows. Now, check if insert disk error is fixed or not.
Your Windows computer can scan for hardware changes, after which it might recognize the connected USB device.
Diskpart, a command line utility can be used to fix removable disk or drive errors.
create partition primary
active
Select partition X (X is the number of your partition)
format fs=fat32
The error should be resolved now.
10.Fix error by formatting USB drive
Formatting can fix ‘insert USB drive into removable disk’ error.
Use the USB flash drive recovery software mentioned above to recover files from USB drive.
Read more: How to Recover Files from a Corrupt or Unresponsive USB Flash Drive?
Faulty USBs and other drives can be fixed or replaced, but nothing is as devastating as the loss of precious photos and media. Thus, USB drive recovery after unexpected errors like ‘please insert disk into removable disk’ is a primary concern for users. With the help of the above solutions, you can fix the USB insert disk error and recover lost media files. Even when you lose complete data from USB flash drive during troubleshooting, you can restore it with the help of Stellar Photo Recovery software.
Download the free trial of the software for Windows or Mac and preview the recoverable photos and videos from USB before finally saving them in your drive.
Sumona is a tech blogger, avid photographer, & technogeek with vast experience in writing about media file recovery tips and tutorials. She has over 10 years of experience in media file recovery/media file repair technology. She is passionate about Photography, Creative Designing, Music, and Exploring lesser-known destinations.
Can I troubleshoot the error?
Hi Pam,
You can choose to troubleshoot the error in Advance troubleshoot. Just, go to the Advance troubleshoot option and select Hardware and Devices, run the troubleshooter, and wait. It may fix the error.
Why such error has happened on my system?
Damaged USB drive, USB incompatibility, and drive letter partition. This is quite a frequent problem. This can occur due to mechanical problems and logical errors. Incompatibility between the USB drive and the computer’s operating system or Damaged disk reader (or card reader, in the case of an SD card).
Thank you,very useful information. I hope, one of these steps will help me out.