SD Cruzer Blade 4g formatting

Hi, I’ve been sent a Cruzer Blade by a friend from france with hundreds of photographs from my travels. Since recieving the USB I’ve been notified by my computer that the disk needs to be formatted before I can see the files. 
Will this format delete the photos on the USB? And if so, is there any software I can download that will let me see the photos?

Thanks

Yes, formating will delete all files on the device.  Don’t do it.  Determine WHY you’re getting the message, ie what is issuing the message, Windows, antivirus, and try to go from there.

Flash drives are designed to be plug and play. Before you do anything, back up your files from your flash drive just to be sure. And the you can do what is suggested, which is giving you that message and why.  

@alexband wrote:

Flash drives are designed to be plug and play. Before you do anything, back up your files from your flash drive just to be sure. And the you can do what is suggested, which is giving you that message and why.  

Can’t really back up the files if the computer won’t accept the flash drive, now can he?

@jmarshall16 wrote:

Hi, I’ve been sent a Cruzer Blade by a friend from france with hundreds of photographs from my travels. Since recieving the USB I’ve been notified by my computer that the disk needs to be formatted before I can see the files. 
Will this format delete the photos on the USB? And if so, is there any software I can download that will let me see the photos?

 

A couple possibilities . . .

1.) If your friend (and the flash drive) are from France and you’re in the US, the drive might have been formatted differently from what your system can read.

2.) If this was sent to you in the mail, the drive probably went through security screening (maybe several places) along the way and possibly through automated sorting machinery which could have rendered it inoperable. It’s happened to me with a simple micro SD card before. Flash drives are much more fragile and susceptible to damage.