In this MiniTool post, we will simply show you what is an exFAT file system and its benefits. Besides, if you delete or lose some important files from an exFAT drive, you can use the two tools mentioned in this article to get them back.
About exFAT File System
What Is exFAT File System?
The full name of exFAT is Extensible File Allocation Table, which was introduced by Microsoft in 2006. It is one of the commonly-used file systems for flash memory like USB flash drives and SD cards. This file system is usually used when NTFS is not available but a greater file size limit than the standard FAT32 file system (i.e. 4 GB) is required. So, an exFAT drive is a drive that uses an exFAT file system.
Currently, exFAT is supported by many operating systems, including Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Windows XP, Windows 7/8/10, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Linux, Mac OS X 10.6.5 and later, some Android OS devices, and some iOS devices.
Recommendation: NTFS vs. FAT32 vs. exFAT – Differences and How to Format to.
The Benefits of exFAT File System
You can enjoy many benefits when you use an exFAT drive:
- It can recognize a large file that exceeds 4 GB.
- It supports a long file’s name, which can reach up to 255 characters.
- The cluster size can reach up to 32MB.
- You can save up to 2,796,202 files in the same directory.
- Both Windows OS and macOS support the exFAT file system. That is, you don’t need to format the drive when you switch an exFAT drive between these two operating systems.
Need to Perform an exFAT Data Recovery?
Perhaps you have formatted your USB drive to exFAT and there are many important files in your exFAT drive. You can back up your USB drive for safe. Then, if a data loss issue happens, you can restore your missing files from the previous backup.
However, if the backup is not available because it is too old or you have never backed up your USB exFAT drive, what can you do to make an exFAT file recovery?
If so, you need to use third-party data recovery software to recover lost and deleted files from an exFAT drive. If you are using a Windows computer, you can try MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a free exFAT file recovery tool. If you are running macOS, you can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, a free Mac data recovery software.
How to Recover Data from exFAT Drive in Windows?
MiniTool Power Data Recovery is specially designed to recover data from exFAT/FAT12/FAT16/FAT32/NTFS/HFS+ drives in Windows 10/8/7. This software supports all kinds of storage drives, including external hard drives, internal hard drives, memory cards, SD cards, pen drives, USB flash drives, and more.
This software can work under different data loss situations like the drive is corrupted, becomes RAW, is reformatted, or the drive can’t be recognized.
This software has a trial edition and you can first try it to scan the exFAT drive you want to recover data from. If you can find the lost files from the scan results, you can upgrade this software to a full edition and then recover all your needed files without limits.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
How to recover lost and deleted data from an exFAT drive using this software? You can following this guide:
1. Download and install this software on your Windows computer.
2. Connect the exFAT drive to your computer via a USB cable.
3. Open the software.
4. This software will show you all the drives it can detect. You need to select the target exFAT drive from the drive list under Logical Drive and then click the Scan button to start scanning the selected drive.
5. The entire scanning process will last for a while. But it should end within half an hour. You need to wait patiently until the whole process ends. When it ends, you can see the scan results that are listed by the path by default. You can open each path to find your needed files you want to recover.
6. This software allows you to preview up to 70 types of files as long as the file’s size does not exceed 100MB. If you are not whether it is the file you want to recover, you can double-click the file to preview it and make confirmation. But if it is the first time for you to use the Preview feature in this trial edition, you will see the following prompt: Your installation does not include the package of file previewer. Do you want to download it now? If so, you need to click the Yes button to download it for further use.
7. If there are so many files in the scan results, it should be a little difficult to find your needed files. If so, you can switch to the Type tab to make the software show you the scan results by the type. You can also use the Find feature to locate your needed files by using the name.
8. If this software can help you find the files you want to recover, you can go to the MiniTool official site to select a suitable full edition and then use the license key you get to register the software directly in the scan result interface.
9. After the software register, you can select the files you want to recover and click the Save button to select a suitable location to save them. When choosing the destination drive, you should not select the original drive. Otherwise, the deleted files could be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
You can see that it is not a difficult job to recover data from an exFAT drive using MiniTool Power Data Recovery. With only some simple clicks, you can get back all your needed files.
Additionally, this software also supports NTFS data recovery. If you have this requirement or you want to know exFAT vs NTFS data recovery, you can get useful information from this article: Tips For NTFS Data Recovery That Will Satisfy Your Needs.
How to Recover Data from exFAT Drive in Mac?
If you are using a Mac computer and you want to recover data from an exFAT drive, you can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.
This software is specially designed for Mac computers. With it, you can recover documents, photos, videos, audio, and more from different types of drives including SSDs, HDDs, memory cards, USB drives, pen drives, etc.
It supports APFS, HFS, HFS+, exFAT, and NTFS drives. No matter the drive is corrupted, formatted, or unrecognized by your computer, you can use this software to recover data from the drive.
This software also has a trial edition. You can also use it to scan the exFAT drive and check whether it can find your needed files. You can go to the MiniTool download center to download and then install this software on your Mac.
The following guide will show you how to use this software to recover lost and deleted files from your exFAT drive.
1. Make sure the exFAT drive is connected to your Mac computer.
2. Open the software.
3. You will see the Select What To Recover interface. Here, you can select the data types you want to recover. If you want to recover all kinds of files, you can just turn on the button for Recover Everything.
4. Click the Next button to continue.
5. This software will show you all the drives it can detect on the following interface. You can see the label for each drive. Then, you need to select the target exFAT drive.
6. If you want to use the Deep scan to scan your exFAT drive, you need to switch the button to ON for Deep Scan (at the left-bottom side of the software interface).
7. Click the Scan button to start scanning the selected exFAT drive.
8. Likewise, the whole scanning process will last for some minutes. You should wait until it ends. Then, you can see the scan results that are listed by Classic List by default. You can open each folder to find your needed files. If you only want to recover the deleted files, you can switch to the Deleted List tab to check.
9. If you still remember the name of the file you want to recover, you can type it into the search box (at the top-right side of the scan results interface) to quickly locate the file.
10. Since you are not allowed to use the trial edition of this software to recover files, you need to upgrade it to a full edition if you want to recover the files you need. You can also get a full edition from the MiniTool official site. After registering the software, you can select all your needed files at once and then click the Recover button to select a suitable drive to save these files. Likewise, the selected destination drive should not be the original drive to avoid data overwritten.
Bottom Line
How to recover data from an exFAT drive in Windows and Mac? After reading this post, you should know the answers. You see it is quite easy to use third-party software to perform an exFAT file recovery. The two programs mentioned in this post are worth trying.
Should you encounter some related issues in your daily life, you can let us know in the comments. Besides, you can also contact us via [email protected].
How to Recover Data from exFAT Drive FAQ
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 8 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery, phone data recovery, and photo recovery, videos download, partition management, and video & audio format conversions.