Why does my flash drive suddenly say it needs to be formatted? Quite a few causes may be contributing to the unformatted error, and it is noteworthy to know the reasons, as you can be alert and keep your USB flash drive away from the error in the future. It does offer a solution to fix it, but the only solution given by Windows is formatting the flash drive. Windows keeps track of files stored on flash drive via reading information in file system, once file system is corrupted, Windows will become unable to access files. The file system gets corrupted and damaged.

This may happen aftert64y you remove the flash drive from computer without following the recommended procedure that requires closing all opened files and clicking Safely Remove option each time before disconnect USB device. What does unformatted USB flash drive mean? When a flash drive asks formatting, you are not able to open it and access files in Windows File Explorer and get an error message saying 'You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it. USB drive says it needs to be formatted, which is one of the most common data loss situations you should know how to deal with. USB flash drive says it needs to be formatted

How to fix a corrupted USB flash drive without losing data?.

The Step-by-step guide: How to recover files from a flash drive that needs to be formatted?.

USB flash drive says it need to be formatted.

Floppy disk says it needs formatted