Media Creation Tool destroyed my USB SSD without any warning – all my data lost

Question

Media Creation Tool destroyed my USB SSD without any warning – all my data lost

Sergii Borodkin 20

I honestly cannot believe this just happened. I wanted to use the Windows Media Creation Tool to create a bootable USB installer, and instead of writing to the USB flash drive I had prepared, it completely wiped my external USB SSD – with hundreds of gigabytes of important data on it.

I just ran it and went for a cup of tea.

There was no clear warning that the entire drive would be erased. There was no safe choice of which drive to use. For some unknown reason, the tool picked my SSD instead of the pen drive, and now everything is gone in an instant.

I am devastated. This was not just some test disk – it contained valuable files, projects, and memories. Losing them because of such a careless design decision is beyond frustrating.

How can Microsoft release a tool that:

Destroys entire drives without a crystal-clear confirmation step

Does not properly let the user pick the target disk, with size and name shown

Gives no final warning like: “All data on this drive will be permanently erased”

It feels reckless and irresponsible. We are in 2025 – people use USB SSDs all the time for storage. One mistake like this, and years of data can be lost forever.

I’m extremely disappointed. This needs to be fixed urgently so no one else has to go through what I just experienced.
Will Microsoft take responsibility for data loss caused by this tool?

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Alexandr S 106.5K Independent Advisor

Hello, Sergii Borodkin

I have no intention of deceiving you. Here's what happens when the MCT starts: User's image

User's image

And at each stage, the user must choose everything himself. Without the user's choice, the program cannot run on its own. So (quote): "I just ran it and went for a cup of tea." - it just can't be. The program can't physically click the mouse for you, you know? If you run it and do nothing, then the very first screen will just hang and that's it. I would really appreciate it if you record a video of MediaCreationTool's "independent work," because if that's the case, then it's not normal. This is not how the program should work. And we can only assume that either there are viruses on the PC, or it was the actions of third parties while you were drinking tea. And I repeat, the program itself simply cannot do this.

Sergii Borodkin 20 Reputation points

2025-09-02T15:41:29.8033333+00:00

Yes. Now i'm getting the same

But this screen did not show yesterday, somehow. Mercury in Venus home, probably
John Weaver 0 Reputation points

2025-11-24T04:26:55.7266667+00:00

As a Senior IT engineer with 45 years of experience, I can testify to the fact that the Windows Media Creation Tool can and WILL overwrite external HDDs without the user having chosen that HDD.
Today, it happened to me.
I had a single 8-GB USB stick plugged in.
I ran the WMCT.
I selected the drive in question.
While the tool was running, I plugged in a 5-TB drive with all of the files I need to rebuild another computer, including all user documents.
When the WMCT was finished, I discovered it had imaged BOTH the 8-GB stick AND the 5-TB drive.
So.. the WMCT did not have internal checks to prevent it from overwriting an external drive that wasn't even connected when the WMCT got past the drive selection screen.

3 additional answers

Your answer

Sergii Borodkin 20 Reputation points

2025-09-02T15:41:29.8033333+00:00

Yes. Now i'm getting the same

But this screen did not show yesterday, somehow. Mercury in Venus home, probably
John Weaver 0 Reputation points

2025-11-24T04:26:55.7266667+00:00

As a Senior IT engineer with 45 years of experience, I can testify to the fact that the Windows Media Creation Tool can and WILL overwrite external HDDs without the user having chosen that HDD.
Today, it happened to me.
I had a single 8-GB USB stick plugged in.
I ran the WMCT.
I selected the drive in question.
While the tool was running, I plugged in a 5-TB drive with all of the files I need to rebuild another computer, including all user documents.
When the WMCT was finished, I discovered it had imaged BOTH the 8-GB stick AND the 5-TB drive.
So.. the WMCT did not have internal checks to prevent it from overwriting an external drive that wasn't even connected when the WMCT got past the drive selection screen.

Answer 1

Hello, Sergii Borodkin.

I understand you, but the fact is that the warning that all data will be deleted is written immediately on the Windows 11 download page.:

User's image

MediaCreationTool also starts downloading content and creating installation media only after the user selects a specific media. The tool cannot do this "on its own". That is, after launching, the user must accept the license agreement, then choose which to create - an ISO image or bootable media. If you select a media, you will need to manually select the media itself on the next screen. And only after that will the content download and media creation begin. Therefore, I dare to assume that you mistakenly chose a USB external drive instead of a USB flash drive (by the way, I myself had a similar case).

Unfortunately, lost data will be very difficult to recover (MediaCreationTool has its own nuances when deleting data). Try to perform recovery yourself using third-party programs, such as Recuva or similar. If this does not bring results, then the only option left is to contact a service center specializing in data recovery. Unfortunately, there are no other options (I never managed to restore it).

Sergii Borodkin 20 Reputation points

2025-09-02T10:42:48.2566667+00:00

I will re-run this tool with the same hardware configuration and try to record a screencast to show what is happening when I run this tool.
I've managed to restore some data, but it's missing paths, and sometimes extensions and proper filenames. So it needs time to get back my files.
I don't need to lie on this forum - I just told that I encountered when I used the program

Answer 2

Alexandr S 106.5K Independent Advisor

Quote: "Mercury in Venus home, probably"

I agree with you:)

Sergii Borodkin 20 Reputation points

2025-09-02T19:17:38.32+00:00

I don't see my comment, to which you replied, strange.

Answer 3

ignoring flawed software architecture that treats 8TB external drives the same as small USB flash drives.

Alright

Pfft

Your response is complete corporate gaslighting. Saying "the user selected the media" completely ignores how horribly designed and dangerously coded this Media Creation Tool is.

First of all, you call it a "USB flash drive" in the UI, but the tool enumerates mass storage devices blindly. It treats a massive 8TB external archive vault exactly the same as a cheap 16GB thumb drive just because they share a USB bus. Blaming the user when your interface fails to filter device types is a UI trap and you can fuck off.

Second, the lack of safety guardrails is irresponsible engineering. A basic validation check on disk capacity or volume usage (GetDiskFreeSpaceEx) would fix this. If the tool detects a multi-terabyte drive with existing data, it should throw a hard block and abort. Instead, it executes a silent diskpart clean script, obliterating the partition map just to force a 32GB FAT32 volume.

To make it worse, it doesn't just clear the partition table

which would be a trivial recovery.

The tool immediately begins sequential writes, dumping gigabytes of installation files directly onto the start of the disk.

This physically overwrites the master file index and corrupts the root metadata. Because of this lazy execution order, a single misclick destroys the structural integrity of the file system, leaving a fragmented, unorganized mess that requires sector-by-sector deep scanning to rebuild.

Brushing off a catastrophic data-loss vulnerability as "user error" is pathetic.

Fix the tool. Filter out non-flash external hard drives, implement a hard capacity ceiling, and require explicit confirmation before running destructive scripts on active data volumes.

A tiny text warning part of something no one reads is weaponized incompetence.