How often do you think about the reliability of your own flash drive? As you know, eternal devices do not exist. And the most expensive flash drive can break for various reasons at the most inopportune moment. For example, a flash drive is often not readable due to the exhaustion of its own resource (the number of read and write cycles is limited by the manufacturer) or due to a virus attack from an infected operating system. In such cases, a user who does not take care of backups of his personal data in advance, asks the eternal classic question: what to do? Now we will try to accurately determine the reasons why the flash drive cannot be read on the computer. The most common ones are described below.
Physical damage
This includes problems caused by physical damage to the flash drive due to its falling on a solid surface or immersion in a liquid. If this has happened recently, most likely, the USB flash drive is not detected due to damage to the connection port or microcircuit. In this case, do not try to repair the drive yourself. You should turn to very experienced professionals who are engaged in data recovery. They will help repair the drive and read information from its memory. Such work can cost about two to three thousand Russian rubles, the price of services depends on the volume of the flash drive and the severity of the damage. Remember, however, that no specialist can guarantee complete data recovery.
Electric shock
Often, the computer does not see the USB flash drive due to the fact that it was incorrectly removed from the port or connected to a damaged USB port. In addition, accidental damage to the drive by electrostatic discharge is possible. Breakdown
An electric discharge can burn out the controller, which is built into the USB flash drive and is responsible for data transfer. In some cases, the above controller may fail even during normal operation with a USB flash drive. However, the USB port of the computer may burn out. But replacing the controller is technically very difficult work. It is best to entrust it to specialists from the data recovery center.
Software problems
It also happens that due to a logical failure in the operating system or a separate program, the flash drive is no longer read. In such cases, the computer identifies the drive but does not read it. If this happened, as a rule, the operating system recommends formatting the USB flash drive to restore the logical structure of the medium, but such a solution will destroy the data.
Before formatting, you should use special programs that will help restore data from readable drives. But even in this case, it is impossible to exclude the option of complete destruction of data due to improper use of professional programs, so it is better to contact specialists.
Port blocking
Sometimes a personal computer does not see a USB flash drive due to a virus or administrator blocking the PC ports. You can try to enable the ports yourself using the Windows Device Manager or the registry. However, you must have the appropriate knowledge and master the PC at the administrator level. Also, the USB port can be completely blocked not by software, but mechanically. For this, special plugs are provided. If you are not a specialist, it is best to contact the administrator.
Disabling USB ports through the registry
Forbidden, and also allows the definition of flash drives a special parameter Start in the registry branch at:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ UsbStor.
If the value of the Start parameter is set to 3, you can connect a USB flash drive, and if it is 4, you can’t.
Option to disable USB ports through device manager
The USB port, familiar to all users, can also be disabled or turned on through the standard Windows Device Manager. In order to check the status of the port, try to find the serial universal bus controller.
Contact contamination
You ask us: "The flash drive cannot be read - what should I do?" And we will answer you that the problem may be pollution of the ports of the computer or the drive itself. Try wiping the ports with alcohol. However, this should only be done with the computer turned off! Otherwise, the port may be damaged or the contacts may be shorted. If after the done procedures the flash drive is still not detected by the operating system, obviously the problem is caused by another reason.
Incorrect connection
It also happens: a USB flash drive cannot be read due to the media being connected to the wrong connector. At certain points, for example in the dark, you can by chance "connect" a USB flash drive to a ventilation or other hole in the computer. So be careful.
Perhaps the following advice will seem to many to be obvious, but most often they recall it too late: regularly back up absolutely all the materials from the flash drive. This approach will help not lose valuable data.
Why the flash drive is not readable: other reasons
There are cases when the personal computer does not recognize the USB flash drive, because they try to connect the drive to the USB connector, which is located on the front panel of the system unit. This is common enough. The problem is this: the specified front port may not be powered at all, although the user may not know this. Sometimes the right amount of power does not reach the front connector. If so, you must try to connect the USB flash drive to the USB port located on the motherboard from the back of the system unit.
Sometimes a flash drive and a laptop cannot be read due to too much storage capacity. Most often, this problem extends to outdated laptop models - they simply can not cope with modern large-capacity drives.
A computer may also not recognize a USB flash drive if a lot of different peripheral devices are already connected to it via USB ports. In such circumstances, he can easily "not see" another connected gadget. Try temporarily disconnecting all devices that work with USB. After that, try to connect the USB flash drive to the computer again.
Flash Drivers: Some Noteworthy Examples
RS Partition Recovery
This program will allow you to restore a formatted or damaged flash drive, as well as any other types of removable media. If you need a program for a micro-SD flash drive, then Partition Recovery is perfect. This is an affordable, convenient to use, as well as reliable data recovery tool, which is the specified program.
This solution will help to quickly recover deleted information from any kind of media with a high level of damage, recreating the data structure from scratch. Thanks to the preview function, you can, even if the flash drive is not read, see the contents of all damaged partitions, and in its original form, which means you can quickly find the information that needs to be restored. Depending on the task, the program can recover all deleted files in a matter of seconds or perform the most thorough scan of all the information on the specified medium in order to recover the damaged data to the maximum extent possible.
If you run a media scan and click on the icon of the required file, you will see its contents in a special window. A deep analysis of information to maximize data recovery will take time, since it involves the search for absolutely all types of materials stored on damaged media. In the case of using such an algorithm, Partition Recovery scans both the file system and the surface of the disk. The result is paying off. In this case, you can not be afraid to damage or delete information on the media during its recovery.
The program includes an additional mode for creating a virtual disk, which completely protects the data recovery procedure. Thus, you can make a copy of the damaged medium by saving its contents, which will be linked into a single file. As a result, you can completely disconnect the damaged drive and use the program to recover data from the specified virtual image, without worrying about the safety of data stored on the original medium.
Partition Recovery works with all types of media: hard drives and any removable storage media (USB flash drives, memory cards of mobile phones and cameras, SSDs) of all models and brands. During the development of the program, almost a hundred different storage media of different models and brands were tested. Among other things, it supports the recovery of documents from Adobe Reade and Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word), digital photos and images of any formats, databases, audio and video files. The program works with common file systems (NTFS5, NTFS 4, NTFS, FAT 32, FAT 16, exFAT) and all current versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Flash recovery
As for the Flash Recovery tool, it is absolutely free. Program
supports various types of flash cards, including microdrives, Smart Media, Sony’s Memory Stick and other USB drives, as well as FAT 32, 16, 12 file systems. This software will help to recover deleted documents, video, audio, digital Images, photos and other files.
There are many more programs that will help you overcome all the difficulties with your storage media. Most often, paid analogues are more functional than their free brothers, but this rule is far from always true, because the functionality and price (free availability) depends primarily on the policy of the software developer, so do not rush to buy a license for the most expensive software package. High-quality programs for flash drives will help you.