{"id":177173,"date":"2021-11-25T15:04:35","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T09:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.www.bullfrag.com\/how-to-recover-lost-space-from-a-usb-stick\/"},"modified":"2022-03-14T22:37:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:07:24","slug":"how-to-recover-lost-space-from-a-usb-stick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/how-to-recover-lost-space-from-a-usb-stick\/","title":{"rendered":"How to recover lost space from a USB stick"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

However, there are occasions where we can find that the storage space of our USB memory has been significantly reduced for no apparent reason. For example, we can find that, of 64 GB of capacity, we only have a maximum of 300 or 500 MB in a strange way. What may seem like a thing of witchcraft may have a reason and a fairly simple solution. And it is that the simple fact that we have manipulated the partitions of the pendrive or the hard disk can cause that most of the unit has been left unassigned<\/p>\n

The USB drive loses space, why?<\/h2>\n

When we open our USB memory we can find that we have lost a lot of storage space. If we decide to open the Disk Administrator we can see how it is still there, but not assigned<\/strong>, so the system is not able to recognize it. This loss usually occurs when we try to record a system boot, since sometimes the partition system of our removable device changes, causing us to have little free space. In the same way, the inappropriate use of certain third-party programs or a failed formatting can also be caused by finding an unallocated or inaccessible space on our USB drive.<\/p>\n

Luckily, when this problem occurs to us, we should not worry, as there are different ways to solve the error and make the device recover its normal storage. For this we can use a tool that is included by default in Windows such as Disk Administrator or Diskpart, as well as opt for third-party programs with which to make partitions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Reclaim Unallocated Space from Windows<\/h2>\n

To solve this annoying problem, what we are going to do is re-establish the partitions of our memory and reallocate all the available space in a single partition. This is something that we can do without using third-party software, we can choose two tools included in Windows such as Disk Administrator and Diskpart.<\/p>\n

First of all, the first thing will be to save everything we have on the device on the computer’s hard drive to have a copy of all the content and not lose it during the process.<\/p>\n

Use Disk Manager<\/h3>\n

By using the Disk manager<\/strong> it is the easiest way to recover the lost storage of our USB memory. To access it, just press the keyboard shortcut “Windows + X” and the menu that will appear select it from the list. Once the utility appears, it will show us all the storage elements of the system, both the internal hard drives and those that we have externally connected.<\/p>\n

Next, we must click with the right mouse button on our blue bar of the defective USB drive. This will bring up a context menu where we will click on “Delete volume”, which will cause a new complete drive to be created with a portion of unallocated space.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Again, we right-click and select “New Simple Volume.”<\/p>\n

\"Disk<\/p>\n

Afterwards, an assistant will appear to help us complete the entire process. We only have to select the type of partition as primary, extended or logical unit. Next, we choose the size of the partition and assign a drive letter or the administrator himself will assign it automatically.<\/p>\n

Once the process is finished, we restart the PC and reconnect our pendrive to check that it has all its available capacity again.<\/p>\n

Using Diskpart<\/h3>\n

In order to use the Diskpart command<\/strong> it will be necessary to open the “Command Prompt” utility. We will do this by writing cmd<\/strong> in the search box of the Start menu and then click on Run as administrator. Once we have the Command Prompt window open, we type “Diskpart” and press Enter.<\/p>\n

Later we are going to launch the command \u00abList disk\u00bb so that we can check which number is assigned to the drive of our USB memory by the system. To do this we write the following and press Enter<\/p>\n

List disk <\/code> <\/p>\n

Next, we are going to select the disk that corresponds to our pendrive by executing the command select “disk N”, where we substitute N for the number that Windows has assigned to our pendrive.<\/p>\n

Select disk 1 <\/code> <\/p>\n

Now we must launch the clean command that will be in charge of eliminating all the existing partitions. To do this we write it and press Enter<\/p>\n

clean <\/code> <\/p>\n

Now we only have one last step, which is to create a partition with all the available storage space. To do this we write the following command and press Enter.<\/p>\n

create partition primary <\/code> <\/p>\n

\"Create<\/p>\n

Once finished, we can use the “list disk” command again to check that our unit has all the available space. We can also close the Command Prompt window and check it from the File Explorer itself.<\/p>\n

Use a third-party partition program<\/h2>\n

If we prefer to avoid Windows’ own tools, we can choose to install a partition program like AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard<\/strong>, with which to be able to recover all the storage capacity of the pendrive. It is a free application that allows us to resize or join partitions without data loss, among other functions. We can download it from this link to their official website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once installed, in its main interface we click with the right button of the mouse on the existing partition of our pendrive and select “Format partition”. This will bring up a new pop-up window, where we must select NTFS or FAT32 as the file system and click “OK” to continue.<\/p>\n

\"AOMEI<\/p>\n

Next, we right-click on an existing partition and select “Resize \/ move partition.”<\/p>\n

\"AOMEI<\/p>\n

This will take us to a new screen where we must drag the slider to the end of the disk. In this way all the unallocated space will be added to the partition and click on “OK”.<\/p>\n

\"AOMEI<\/p>\n

Then we can see a preview of the partition status or undo any changes made. Finally, we click on \u00abApply\u00bb, so that the changes made are applied and saved. After a few seconds, the program will recover all the unallocated space on our USB drive.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

However, there are occasions where we can find that the storage space of our USB memory has been significantly reduced for no apparent reason. For example, we can find that, of 64 GB of capacity, we only have a maximum of 300 or 500 MB in a strange way. What may seem like a thing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":177174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3376],"tags":[3036],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/How-to-recover-lost-space-from-a-USB-stick.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284187,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177173\/revisions\/284187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}