Solved: 0 Byte File Error on USB/Pen Drive/SD Card

Problem:

“I had a 64 GB USB drive where I kept all my important work files. For a few days, my colleagues were sharing the same USB. Now, when I try to access my data, the drive shows 0 bytes and 0 KB files on it. I can’t open or even view anything saved on the drive. Can you help me figure out why it’s showing 0 bytes? How do I get my files back?”

Answer:

You might’ve run into this exact situation yourself. No matter what kind of files you’ve got stored on your device, you open one up and find it’s sitting at 0 KB. Doesn’t matter if it’s a .exe file, a .docx, or an image or video file like jpg, png, mp4, or mp3.

Jump to whichever section covers what you need:

1. What is a 0-byte File Error?
2. What causes the error 0-byte or 0 KB in the drive?
3. Fix the issue 0-byte file error using 3 simple methods
4. Restore the lost/deleted data from the drive due to 0-byte error

What Does 0 Byte File Error Mean?

When your storage drive reads 0 bytes, that means the drive looks completely empty, no data turns up at all. In the same way, if a file’s size shows as 0 KB, it means there’s no actual content inside it. What’s usually behind files dropping to 0 KB or 0 bytes is a virus called SYSWIN, also known as the 0 KB virus.

Reasons Behind File Turning 0 Byte or KB

• As we mentioned above, the biggest culprit is a virus or malware infection on the drive. Keep your storage device protected.
• Corruption in a file, or damage to the index table, can trigger a 0 KB error. The index table keeps track of exactly where files and folders live on the drive. When that table gets corrupted, your computer can’t locate the data and shows it as 0 bytes instead. In that case, you’ll want to fix file corruption right away.
• You may have downloaded files from a site you shouldn’t have trusted. Files you receive can come through incomplete if there was some kind of transfer glitch.
• A power outage, rough handling of the storage drive, or plugging the same drive into multiple devices can also leave your drive or file sitting at 0 bytes.

Whatever’s causing the 0-byte error on your drive, you can get your files back without much hassle once you work through the right fixes below.

How to Fix Zero Byte Files Problem?

The methods below will help you fix the 0-byte file problem on your computer and get your files restored to their actual file size.

• Antivirus
• Chkdsk
• Error Checking

Run an Antivirus to Remove 0 KB/ 0-Byte Error

You can clear the 0 KB virus off your computer with any trusted, legitimate antivirus software.

Also, make it a habit to use zip tools like WinZip, 7-Zip, or WinRAR to compress files. That way large files transfer safely between devices.

Fix 0 Byte file using Chkdsk CMD Prompt

CHKDSK is the command that checks for and fixes logical errors on your system, things like formatting problems: no media found on device, or a drive that won’t format. Running CHKDSK is worth trying to resolve the 0-byte file error.

1. 1. Right-click the Start button and open Command Prompt in admin mode.
   2. Then type chkdsk /f D:, where D is the letter of the drive or partition holding the 0-byte file, and hit Enter

• The command kicks off a scan of the file system. If it doesn’t find anything wrong, it’ll tell you no problems were found.
• If it does turn up errors, chkdsk checks the system and file system for issues and helps fix them, including 0-byte or 0-KB errors
  Once the CHKDSK scan wraps up, your 0-byte files should be fixed and restored, ready to use again.

Also Read: How to Recover Deleted Files by CHKDSK?.

Fix 0 Byte File Error using Error Checking Tool

1. 1. Connect the drive to your computer if you’re dealing with 0-byte files on a USB, SD card, or external drive.
   2. Right-click the drive, choose Properties, then head to the Tools tab and click Check now or Check under Error-checking

• A pop-up window will appear, select Automatically fix file system errors and hit the Start button.
• Let the scan finish, then close the window.
• Now open the storage device or the hard drive partition. Type FOUND.000 into the address field and press Enter
• Save that file to a separate partition, then rename it and change its file extension.

For example: rename FOUND.000 to something like Word.doc, Excel.xls, or Image.jpg or png, depending on what it is.

Now open it up and check the content. Your 0-byte file error should be fixed, and you can go back to using it.

If you’re still running into the same problem, that’s a sign your drive is more seriously corrupted. In that case, you need to repair the corrupt drive as soon as possible. Your best bet for getting the data back is to use a third-party recovery tool to recover data from the corrupted USB drive.

The SFWare Data Recovery tool is one you can count on for pulling data off a corrupt drive. Even with severe corruption, its advanced scan algorithm works around the damage and reads every sector of the drive to recover your data efficiently and quickly.

How can I fix a USB flash drive that is showing 0 bytes?

Start with Disk Management before you touch chkdsk or diskpart. Right-click the Start button, choose Disk Management, and look at the row for your drive. If Windows lists the capacity correctly there (say 58.6 GB on a 64 GB stick) but File Explorer shows 0 bytes, the partition table is readable and you are looking at a file system problem, not a dead drive. If Disk Management also shows 0 MB or “Unallocated,” the issue sits lower down, and chkdsk will not fix it.

From there, work through this order rather than jumping straight to the most drastic option:

• Unplug the drive, plug it into a different USB port, ideally one on the back of a desktop wired straight to the motherboard rather than a front panel header.
• Try a second computer. A drive reading 0 bytes on one machine but mounting fine on another points to a driver or port issue, not the drive itself.
• Run chkdsk from an elevated command prompt before anything else, since it can repair the file system without touching your data.
• Only use diskpart’s clean command as a last resort. It wipes the partition table completely, and there is no undo once you confirm it.

I have seen a USB drive come back from 0 bytes after nothing more than a port swap. Static buildup on a USB-C to USB-A adapter did it once, oddly enough.

Why is my USB drive showing “0 bytes no media”?

“No media” is Windows telling you it cannot detect any storage medium behind the drive letter at all, not that the files are corrupted. You will usually see this exact wording in Disk Management’s status column rather than in File Explorer. It shows up most often after a drive gets unplugged mid-write, after a controller chip failure on cheap flash drives, or when the USB bridge between the NAND memory and the connector fails.

A command-line check can confirm it fast. Open an elevated command prompt and run:

wmic diskdrive get status,caption

If your drive comes back as anything other than OK, or does not appear at all, that is the USB no media 0 bytes fix cmd route telling you the controller, not the file system, is the problem. Diskpart will usually show the same drive listed with a size of 0 B and no volume underneath it.

When it is the controller, chkdsk and formatting both fail, because there is nothing for them to act on. At that point the drive needs its memory chip read directly by specialist recovery hardware, which is a job for a data recovery lab, not software on your desktop.

Why is my USB file copy stuck at 0 bytes?

Nine times out of ten, it is a USB 3.0 port negotiating at USB 2.0 speeds and then timing out mid-transfer, especially on drives formatted exFAT. The copy dialog sits at 0 bytes or 0% for a long stretch, then either crawls forward or throws error 0x80070079, “The semaphore timeout period has expired.”

Large single files make this worse. A 12 GB video file copied to a FAT32-formatted drive will not just stall, it will fail outright, since FAT32 cannot hold any file over 4 GB regardless of how much free space is left. Check the file system under the drive’s Properties tab before you assume anything is broken.

If the transfer stalls on a drive you know is FAT32 and otherwise healthy, cancel the copy, reformat to exFAT (right-click the drive, Format, choose exFAT from the dropdown), and copy again. Do not reformat yet if you have not backed up what is already on the drive, since formatting wipes it.

Pen drive shows 0 bytes and cannot be formatted

If Windows throws “Windows was unable to complete the format” on a drive that already reads 0 bytes, do not keep retrying the format dialog. Repeated failed format attempts can push a borderline drive from recoverable to not. Back up anything you can still copy off first, even partial files, before trying anything else.

Open an elevated command prompt and run diskpart, then list disk, then select your drive with select disk 2 (check the disk number carefully, since selecting the wrong one risks wiping your main drive). From there, clean followed by create partition primary and format fs=ntfs quick will often succeed where the GUI format fails. This is the same diskpart clean route mentioned above for stubborn 0-byte drives, and it is destructive: everything on the drive goes.

If diskpart also fails to format the disk, or list disk does not show it at all, the controller has likely failed. No software fix, built-in or third-party, writes a new file system onto a drive the controller will not report correctly.

5 Simple Steps to Recover 0 byte Files

To get your data back from a 0-byte file problem, download the SFWare data recovery tool, install it, and follow the steps below.

Step 1: Launch the tool, select the device, and click on Scan.

Step 2: Once the quick scan finishes, check for the 0-byte files.

Step 3: Pick out the files you want to recover.
(Use the search box and Filter options to find files quickly by their file extensions)

Step 4: Preview the photos by double-clicking them.

Step 5: Select the data you want and click Save to restore it onto your device.

Frequently Asked Questions

1: What is 0 byte error?

The virus named SYSWIN, also called the 0 KB virus, is what’s behind your files dropping to 0 KB or 0 bytes. Once a folder turns 0 bytes, you won’t be able to get at the data on the USB. Before you try to fix the error, it’s a good idea to recover data from the USB first, then fix the error using the methods covered in this article.

2: How to Fix 0 byte Error?

You can start out by trying a few simple fixes, like:

1. • Connecting the removable media to a different computer
   • Installing antivirus software on your computer.
   • If the problem shows up on an SD card, try swapping out the card reader to see if that’s the issue.

If none of these simple tricks do the trick, go ahead and try the CHKDSK and Error Checking tool methods covered earlier in this article.