The flash drive does not open - what should I do? A flash drive is detected but cannot be opened.

If you have even the most distant relation to IT, then you cannot but know that in recent years the most common storage media are ordinary memory cards. Prices per gigabyte (yes, nobody remembers megabytes) are constantly falling, and reliability remains at the same level.

Today it’s no longer surprising anyone when they can just give a 4-8 GB flash drive along with information whose total size does not exceed a couple of megabytes. Previously, no one could even think of such a thing!

But this cheapness also has its downside. It is not by chance that we mentioned that "reliability has remained at the same level of damage." Moreover, this reliability is directly proportional to the size of the flash drive. For example, if a 2 GB memory card in "natural conditions" is almost impossible to overwrite so many times so that it fails, then with a 64 GB card such a nuisance can happen easily.

It’s especially a shame that even completely new flash drives fail so easily, as if they had been used for several years! Often they take a bunch of data with them ...

What is the reason

Have you noticed what size flash drives were before, and what are they now? Today there are memory cards the size of a nail on which 32 GB of data is placed. Unfortunately, physics cannot be fooled.

You have to pay for the huge data recording density. So, for the correction of errors (which in this case will be necessary) are complex mathematical algorithms. Due to the same recording density, the number of its cycles is greatly reduced. In a word, everything is in the spirit of the modern economy: to release something that has outwardly attractive characteristics, but forget to tell us what it is fraught with.

However, quite the lyrics. Suppose that your flash drive does not open. What to do and what to do next? To answer this question, it is necessary to deal with theoretical questions.

What problems with memory cards are most common?

We’ll make a reservation right away that all the solutions we offer are valid for Windows, since these operating systems are the most common. Note that with regular use of the flash drive and when working with important files, you must constantly make backups of important information.

In this case, even if the USB flash drive opens as a shortcut, you will at least not lose important files permanently.

Most often, problems begin after the user ejects the flash drive without first completing work with it (the “Stop the device” function). In this case, service information often suffers, as a result of which the disk ceases to be detected and read.

What should be done first?

There are many reasons why a flash drive does not open. What to do first? Make sure that you are not connected to any network drive. With Windows, it often happens that the system assigns the same drive letter to the flash drive as the network drive. In addition, if the memory card is formatted for the NTFS file system, sometimes you have to assign a letter yourself.

Laptops

Most often, these problems are found with laptops, especially old ones. Look if other ports are busy: if each of them sticks out on a splitter into which you connect a USB lamp, a fan and something else, then with a high degree of probability we can assume that the motherboard simply can not cope with the load.

Disconnect unnecessary devices, and then try to insert the ill-fated memory card again.

If even after that you cannot open it, connect it to another computer. And you can’t open it on it? Then almost certainly the problem is in the drive itself. Important! If you don’t have a second computer for testing the memory card on it, do not forget about the simple fact that the USB connector itself could very well fail.

Anyway, but today it is very difficult to find a car equipped with only one such connector. Try connecting the memory card to all available. Perhaps at least one of them will read it normally.

Computers

Attention! If we are talking about a regular computer with front USB-connectors, then remember about their unpleasant habit of failing for any reason. For this reason, a flash drive often does not open. What to do in this case? Go to the store and buy a PCI card with a whole bunch of new USB.

And attention again! Please note that the power of the old power supply and the capabilities of the ancient motherboard (if you have such a computer) may not be enough to power such a device. So check with your specifications in advance.

Card readers

If you are wondering why the flash drive does not open, it will not hurt to find out another question. Until now, we talked exclusively about their USB-types, completely overlooking the existence of Micro SD and other memory cards.

So here. Card readers to work with them are often far from perfect. Many collectors sin that even expensive computers install very dubious Chinese crafts that literally fall apart after a couple of months.

The author of the article himself observed how a completely new flash drive is detected, but does not open. And this was connected precisely with the poor quality of the equipment. If possible, try connecting the memory card through another computer.

Pay attention also to the adapter. The fact is that Micro SD only connects to a computer through it. With the quality of Chinese consumer goods, faulty adapters often come across. Just replace it, and in most cases all your problems will be resolved.

What to do in other cases?

First, click on the "Start" button, and then look for the item "Control Panel" there. Left-click on the item "Administration", double-click on "Computer Management".

A dialog box will open, in the right part of which you should click on “Storage devices”. If you see your flash drive in the list that appears, and its volume is determined correctly, then the whole point is a file system failure.

If there aren’t any valuable files on the disk, you can simply format it using standard system tools. In the case when this does not work, you can use proprietary utilities to force their formatting.

The HS2.0_Utility_Repair_2 program (suitable for almost all drives), or something with the difficult name CBM2090UMPTOOL, copes with many problems perfectly. However, the latter program remarkably formats bad flash drives made in China, so you should not neglect its help. If your flash drive does not open (we’ve already discussed what to do in typical situations), then it’s better to take a closer look at the memory card.

A little bit about existing tricks

Keep in mind that on the official websites of all self-respecting memory card manufacturers there are special utilities for forced formatting. If the USB flash drive does not open on the computer, use their help.

In the case when the disk size is incorrectly determined, everything is much more serious. Most likely, the matter is the failure of its controller or serious damage to the internal structure.

If the flash drive is made by unknown Chinese specialists, then the risk is high that you bought an old model, the true capacity of which is 521 MB! Cunning Chinese just re-flash the controller, and then sell flash drives to unsuspecting customers.

If you have such a flash drive (does not open, asks you to format it), then thinking about restoring it is useless. It’s better to immediately buy a new one, and not spoil your nerves.