How to fix usb input. Instructions for restoring flash drives
Restoring USB flash drives has its own characteristics. The good news is that these devices, unlike SD cards, are repairable. Therefore, if you cannot exchange a flash drive under warranty, why not take advantage of the 60-70% chance to have it repaired.
The article will discuss various cases, typical problems associated with flash drive failure, and options for solving them.
Recover data or repair a flash drive?
These are not the same thing, although the concepts are interrelated.
The main task that the repair solves is to restore the functionality of the flash drive so that it:
- defined as a storage device in Disk Management,
- was correctly defined in Explorer,
- read and wrote data.
As a result of repair usb flash drives It’s easy to lose all the data on it, but it will still be writable and readable.
File recovery is only possible on a working USB flash drive.
The main reasons for failure of a USB flash drive
How to understand that a USB flash drive needs repair:
- When a flash drive is connected, the LED on its case does not light up;
- The device is not recognized on another computer/laptop;
- The flash drive is defined as unidentified usb device.
Damaging a USB drive is as easy as shelling pears. Like any physical device, flash memory is subject to external influences (shock, thermal effects, water ingress, etc.). In addition, there are a number of software errors due to which the flash drive does not work.
The contacts of the USB connector are damaged
Often, the problem lies in a damaged contact between the controller and the USB connector.
How to check. To check the flash drive for this problem, test it on another computer. Alternatively, insert another flash drive (if available) into the USB port of the same computer.
If other flash drives can be read on a PC without problems, the problem is probably in the current storage medium.
If you are unable to read data from a flash drive only on this computer, the problem may be in the USB sockets of the PC or laptop motherboard.
How to fix it.
- Here is a link to a third-party guide on how to repair a USB connector: DIY USB connector repair on a laptop.
- If you don’t want to fiddle with wires, it’s better to send a PC or flash drive with a broken USB port for repair. Approximate cost USB replacements – $20 – 50.
Hardware/mechanical problem: controller damaged
Most often, everything depends on the flash drive controller, which is the main link in the operation of the drive. The controller contains important microcircuits, and disconnecting a contact or burning out a leg will make data recovery on a flash drive very problematic.
How to fix a flash drive.
- Replace the controller yourself (which is unrealistic at home).
- Take the USB drive to a service center - but repairing the flash memory will cost a lot of money. You won't find a controller for a USB flash drive on sale. The laboratory can find a donor flash drive and “transplant” the faulty controller.
- If the data stored on a flash drive is vital and you would like to recover it, the laboratory may use an expensive hardware and software system to retrieve the data bypassing the hardware controller.
You can find out the cost of services directly from specialists at a company that repairs flash drives in your city. It can start from $30 and go up to $500 - 1000.
Reflashing a damaged flash drive
The USB flash drive contains firmware - microcode with service data. If the USB firmware is damaged, the USB flash drive will inevitably stop working.
How to fix it. Such a flash drive cannot be formatted using ordinary universal software like SDFormatter; it will require complete “trephination” - flashing. To do this, you will need a proprietary utility from the manufacturer.
However, you can reflash the flash drive only by finding out the name of the controller. The difficulty is that manufacturers, as a rule, use different types and models of controllers and can implement not only their own, but also other people’s developments. Therefore, it is not always possible to immediately determine the type of flash memory controller.
Fortunately, there are special programs that allow you to determine the VID&PID* type for Transcend, Silicon Power, etc. drives; We will list them with a link to the installers.
(* VID – manufacturer identifier, PID – device identifier.)
After the warranty repair, all the photos on the smartphone and on the SD card disappeared.
Answer. A very vague question. Warranty repairs were carried out on what - mobile device or memory cards? All your claims against the performers are governed by your contract.
As for data recovery on an SD card, use specialized applications, which, in fact, are what this site is dedicated to.
A 2GB flash card from an old Nokia phone, the phone sees the flash drive perfectly, the tablet and other phones do not see it. My equipment sees other people's flash cards.
Answer. If other flash cards do not open on your, as you say, old Nokia, it is most likely because the phone simply does not support new technologies. Review the documentation and specifications for your device. Perhaps it's time to upgrade your hardware?
My 32GB micro flash drive broke in half. How can I recover information on this flash drive? Please tell me where and who can help me, how to fix the flash drive?
Answer. Alas, this flash drive cannot be repaired or at least somehow reanimated. If the firmware on your flash drive crashed, then you could give it some chance of recovery. As for physical damage, it all depends on the damage. If the flash memory chips are intact, you can read the data through a PC 3000 Flash reader, etc.
Only possible solution(if the files are not particularly important) – purchase a new microSD card.
The flash drive does not open, does not appear as a removable disk, and does not appear in the device manager. Physical impact is excluded, because There are three such flash drives, different people worked with them.
Answer. You haven't specified the type of memory you are working with. In any case, if a flash drive or SD card does not open, I would advise checking the operation of the flash card on other devices. Test it on other phones or devices that you can connect it to. If it is an SD card, try connecting it to your PC via a card reader.
Check if the connected device is detected in Device Manager. If yes, use any disk partitioning program or regular means Windows, or proprietary software available on the flash drive developer’s website to format the flash drive in NTFS or FAT.
While formatting the flash drive (transcend), the flash drive was pulled out from the PC. It was clear that it would no longer work, a check confirmed this. The computer does not detect the flash drive, the indicator blinks all the time, it is not in “my computer”, it is in the device manager, it says that it works fine, it is defined as a storage device. Help me restore the transcend flash drive!
Answer. The file table on your flash drive is probably damaged. You can still restore the operation of a flash drive if you create a partition on it and format it. You can revive a flash drive, as already mentioned, using specialized utilities like Acronis Disc Director, etc., but it is best to use the TestDisk application to partition and restore a transcend flash drive.
The flash drive was encrypted in TrueCrypt, I reinstalled the OS, mounted the flash drive, the files were displayed, but when I tried to open them, it gave me an error - access denied. Tell me, is it possible to save information if the flash drive is not detected after encryption?
Answer. You will need a client program to work with Truecrypt. Alas, the truecrypt.org website is currently unavailable, and the project itself is closed. So try to find the application somewhere on the Internet. After this, when opening files, you will be required to enter a password to access your files.
The flash drive is reset and the system requires formatting the flash drive, but I need to save very important and expensive files. Help!
Answer. Under no circumstances agree to format your flash drive! Instead, use data recovery software and try to recover the missing partition on your storage device. You can safely copy all saved information to hard drive and then search among these rubble for exactly what you need.
There is a JetFlash Transcend 8GB flash drive. No longer determined by the system. I formatted it with JetFlash Online Recovery and it deleted all data from the flash drive. Is it now possible to recover the Transcend flash drive, that is, the data on it?
Answer. The Unformat program is suitable for restoring a Transcend flash drive. The chances of recovery depend on the depth of formatting. Anyway, use the deep scan option. Alternatively, try Recuva with a similar scanning option.
The USB cable from the old mp3 player was out of order, apparently the wires at the connector itself were broken, because if you move it, it starts to work.
I didn’t even think about repairing it and went straight to the shops, but as it turned out, USB cable not in any store. Either the connector is rare or the player is too old, but there was only one way out - to repair it yourself.
The USB connector is located in some kind of not very dense housing. I cut it along the solder line and pulled out the connector itself. It is difficult to pull out, so you need to be careful not to overdo it, so as not to completely break the wires. The ringing of the cable showed that I was right and some of the wires had simply frayed.
Essentially, the entire repair consisted of stripping the wires and soldering them in place; of course, you can’t do this without a soldering iron. So, I soldered the wires, checked that everything was working and carefully inserted everything back into the case, sealing it with glue. And that's it, 15 minutes and I did it.
The process and the USB cable itself are in the photo below (you can click to enlarge)
Everything turned out to be so simple that I didn’t even expect to do everything in 15 minutes.
If suddenly someone breaks the wires when pulling the connector out of the case, then below USB pinout connector
Correspondence between the numbers of pins and wires of the USB cable by color:
1 - Red - +5V
2 - White - Data "-"
3 - Green - Data "+"
4 - Black - Earth
Various problems with USB drives or flash drives are something that probably every owner faces. The computer does not see the flash drive, files are not deleted or written, Windows writes that the disk is write-protected, the amount of memory is displayed incorrectly - this is not a complete list of such problems. Perhaps, if the computer simply does not detect the drive, this guide will also help you: (3 ways to solve the problem). If the flash drive is detected and works, but you need to restore files from it, first I recommend reading the material.
If different ways to fix USB errors drive by manipulating drivers, actions in Windows Disk Management, or using command line(diskpart, format, etc.) did not lead to a positive result, you can try utilities and programs for repairing flash drives provided by both manufacturers, for example, Kingston, Silicon Power and Transcend, and third-party developers.
On the official website of Silicon Power, in the “Support” section, a program for repairing flash drives from this manufacturer is presented - USB Flash Drive Recovery. To download you will need to enter an address email(not checked), then the UFD_Recover_Tool ZIP archive is downloaded, which contains the SP Recovery Utility (requires .NET Framework 3.5 components for operation, will be downloaded automatically if necessary).
Similar to the previous program, SP Flash Drive Recovery requires an Internet connection to work and restoration of work occurs in several stages - determining the parameters of the USB drive, downloading and unpacking a suitable utility for it, then - automatic execution necessary actions.
You can download the program for repairing flash drives Silicon Power SP Flash Drive Recovery Software for free from the official website http://www.silicon-power.com/web/download-USBrecovery
If you are the owner of a Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 drive, then on the official Kingston website you can find a utility for repairing this line of flash drives, which will help format the drive and bring it to the condition it had when purchased.
You can download Kingston Format Utility for free from https://www.kingston.com/ru/support/technical/downloads/111247
ADATA USB Flash Drive Online Recovery
The manufacturer Adata also has its own utility that will help fix flash drive errors if you cannot read the contents of the flash drive, Windows reports that the disk is not formatted, or you see other errors related to the drive. To download the program you will need to enter serial number flash drives (so that exactly what is required is loaded) as in the screenshot below.
After downloading, run the downloaded utility and perform several simple steps to restore the operation of a USB device.
Official page where you can download ADATA USB Flash Drive Online Recovery and read about using the program - http://www.adata.com/ru/ss/usbdiy/
Apacer Repair Utility, Apacer Flash Drive Repair Tool
Several programs are available for Apacer flash drives - different versions Apacer Repair Utility (which, however, cannot be found on the official website), as well as Apacer Flash Drive Repair Tool, available for download on official pages some of the Apacer flash drives (search the official website specifically for your USB drive model and look at the downloads section at the bottom of the page).
Apparently, the program performs one of two actions - simple formatting of the drive (Format item) or low-level formatting (Restore item).
Formatter Silicon Power
Formatter Silicon Power - free utility low level formatting flash drive, which, according to reviews (including in the comments to the current article), works for many other drives (but use it at your own peril and risk), allowing you to restore their functionality when no other methods help.
The utility is no longer available on the official SP website, so you will have to use Google to download it (I do not provide links to unofficial locations within this site) and do not forget to check the downloaded file, for example, on VirusTotal before launching it.
SD Memory Card Formatter for repairing and formatting SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards (including Micro SD)
The SD Memory Card Manufacturers Association offers its own universal utility for formatting the corresponding memory cards if problems arise with them. Moreover, judging by the available information, it is compatible with almost all such drives.
The program itself is available in versions for Windows (Windows 10 is also supported) and MacOS and is quite easy to use (but you will need a card reader).
You can download SD Memory Card Formatter from the official website https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/
D-Soft Flash Doctor program
The free D-Soft Flash Doctor program is not tied to any specific manufacturer and, judging by reviews, can help fix problems with a flash drive through low-level formatting.
In addition, the program allows you to create an image of a flash drive for subsequent work not on a physical drive (to avoid further malfunctions) - this can be useful if you need to get data from a Flash drive. Unfortunately, the official website of the utility could not be found, but it is available on many resources with free programs.
How to find a program to repair a flash drive
In fact, there are much more such free utilities for repairing flash drives than are listed here: I tried to take into account only relatively “universal” tools for USB drives from different manufacturers.
It is quite possible that none of the above utilities are suitable for restoring the functionality of your USB drive. In this case, you can use the following steps to find the program you need.
Additionally: if all the described methods are repaired USB drive didn't help, try.
A USB flash drive is not recognized as a disk when connected to a computer or laptop? Can't you write anything on it? And you can’t even format the flash drive? In principle, all is not lost. Most likely the problem lies with the controller. But this can be fixed. And everything will take a maximum of 5-10 minutes.
The only caveat is that restoring the flash drive’s functionality is only possible if it has no mechanical damage (+ it appears in device manager). That is, if you disabled it not through “Safely Remove” (or something like that), then this can be fixed. At the very least, it’s worth at least trying to restore a non-working flash drive.
How to get your flash drive working again
Even if it seems that the USB flash drive has come to an end, you should not take it for repairs. And even more so throw it away. First, you can try to restore the damaged flash drive.
The instructions work for all USB flash drives: Silicon Power, Kingston, Transcend, Data Traveler, A-Data, etc. You can use it to restore file system and eliminate any problems (except mechanical damage).
So, the first thing you need to do is determine the parameters of the USB flash drive. Or rather, its VID and PID. Based on this information, you can determine the brand of the controller, and then select a utility that will help restore the damaged flash drive.
To find out these parameters, do the following:
- Connect the flash drive to your PC or laptop and go to Start – Control Panel – Device Manager.
- Find the "USB Controllers" section.
- Double-click on it and look for the item “Memory USB device" This is your flash drive (let me remind you, it must be connected to the computer).
- Right-click on it and select “Properties”.
- In the new window, go to the “Details” tab.
- In the “Property” field, select “Equipment ID” (or “Instance code”).
- Look at the VID and PID values and remember them.
- Next, go to the website http://flashboot.ru/iflash/, enter your values at the top of the site and click the “Search” button.
- You are looking for the model of your USB flash drive (by manufacturer and memory capacity). In the right column “Utils” there will be the name of the program with which you can try to restore a non-working flash drive.
After that, all that remains is to find this utility by name or follow the link (if it exists) and download it.
Restoring Kingstone, Silicon Power, Transcend and other models is easy: just run the program and follow the instructions.
What to do if you haven't found suitable utility for your model? To do this, go to Google or Yandex and write something like this: “Silicon Power 4 GB VID 090C PID 1000” (of course, you should indicate the parameters of your flash drive here). And then look what the search engine found.
Never use programs that are not suitable for the VID and PID parameters of your controller! Otherwise, you will “kill” the flash drive completely, and you will no longer be able to restore it.
In most cases, recovery of a damaged flash drive is successful. And after that it will be detected when connected to a PC or laptop.
This is how you repair a flash drive yourself using a free utility.
And most importantly: in this way it is possible to restore a damaged flash drive in 80% of cases. While most specialized programs may not be able to cope with this task.
1. There is always a solution. First of all, restart your computer or laptop. We can say that this is a popular recipe. As a rule, in most cases it helps, and the functionality of the ports returns.2. We advise you to update the hardware configuration in Device Manager. How to open device manager? Right-click on “My Computer” and context menu Find the “Management” tab. We click on it. We are looking for the “Update hardware configuration” tab. Click again. If after the update you see a USB controller in the list, then the problem with the port is solved; if not, move on!
3. Disconnect the USB controller. To do this, go to the “Device Manager” again and simply delete all USB controllers here. Do not be afraid, because after a targeted reboot of the entire system they will appear again. So take action!
4. It is possible that the port stopped working due to a simple overload. If you have a USB divider installed on your computer, try unplugging it for a while to let it cool down, and then plugging it back in. It should work. In this case, the port can be checked for functionality by attaching, for example, a flash drive directly to it.
5. The USB port may well be damaged. Check the visual condition of the port carefully. It should be identical to the other ports available on your computer. See any differences? Remember if any foreign objects could have gotten into your port? Perhaps this is precisely the problem.
6. It is possible that the port is simply not connected to motherboard. This can often happen on laptops. If you have disassembled your laptop before, check whether you have connected the USB connectors to the motherboard. If none of the above tips help you, take your computer or laptop and take it to service center, where in one way or another they will tell you what exactly happened to your device. In the video below you can see how to fix the USB port on a laptop yourself by repairing the motherboard.
