How to Fix/Repair USB Flash Drive and Recover Data

"I have a little 32 GB Toshiba USB flash drive which stores lots of important files. Surely, I frequently use it to back up and transfer movies and songs. It has been working great for two years. But just now, when I rejected it from my HP computer and Windows prompted me that I couldn't remove it safely. It seems like I have to format it for further use. How to repair this USB flash drive? I don't want to format it and lose files it stored. Any help?"

"My flash drive can't be detected on my new ThinkPad computer. It worked fine on the old Windows 7 Dell. How to fix USB flash drive and make it be recognized?"

Flash drive, thumb drive, Pen drive, SD card and other USB storage devices make it simple and convenient to store and transfer data.

You may use it every day.

However, many issues that may cause your USB drive damaged and data inaccessible. For instance, you may unplug flash drive improperly from the port and then the USB device corrupt. Or other unsure issues make flash drive can't work on laptop. How to fix flash drive issues and bring it back to the normal condition? How to deal with the lost files?

• Part 1. Common flash drive issues
• Part 2. Basic solutions to fix USB flash drive
• Part 3. How to recover data after the flash drive repaired

Part 1. Common flash drive issues

You have to admit that, during the usage of your USB flash drive, you have faced all kinds of issues. Before we show how to fix flash drive, you will show some regular error messages about it.

"USB device not recognized."

"Unknown drive, port reset failed."

"Drive did not load successfully."

"Unknown device, descriptor request failed, error code 43."

"The device you connected to this computer malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it."

"One of the devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message."

Part 2. Basic solutions to fix USB flash drive

Do these look familiar? In fact, you are more likely faced them all. There are many simple ways can get rid of the USB flash drive problems. This part will tell you some basic trying to repair flash drive.

Flash drive repair - Fix flash drive can't be recognized

Step 1 Try the USB flash drive on another port or computer.

Step 2 Make sure the system and motherboard are compatible.

Step 3 Make sure the flash drive is enabled in BIOS and operating system.

Flash drive repair - Fix flash drive can't be rejected safely

Method one:

Step 1 Make sure there is no data used in this flash drive.

Step 2 Open Task Manager and then close USB drive and related tasks.

Method two:

Step 1 Plug flash drive into the USB port on your computer.

Step 2 Open My Computer and then choose Removable Disk icon.

Step 3 Right click on the Removable Disk and enter its Properties.

Step 4 Click Tools > Rebuild to scan your damaged USB flash drive.

Step 5 Right click the removable USB storage device and then choose Eject option. This operation will remove your flash drive safely.

Fix USB flash drive with CMD

If the regular trying can't help you repair your flash drive. You can try using CMD to fix flash drive corruption.

Step 1 Connect your flash drive with computer. Open search bar and type in cmd.

Step 2 Here you will find a cmd. exe under a list of software. Double click on it to open CMD. This CMD commend line will help you fix the corrupt flash drive.

Step 3 Enter "chkdsk sd card letter: /f " or "chkdsk/X/f pen/flash drive letter:" to let Windows check and fix the file system on your flash drive.

After that, you will see the message that saying "Windows has made corrections to the file system". That means your corrupted USB flash drive has been repaired.

Part 3. How to recover data after the flash drive repaired

Actually, many helpful ways can help you fix your damaged or corrupted USB flash drive. Maybe you care more about the lost data due to the flash drive issues. Don't worry. We will show you how to recover lost/deleted data in this part. To do it, you will need a powerful USB data recovering tool. Here we recommend the easy-to-use Data Recovery for you.

This USB drive data recovering software enables you to recover any frequently-used data type from like photo, document, email, audio, video and more. Besides restoring data from USB flash drive, it can help you retrieve files from computer, hard drive, memory card, digital camera, etc. Now you can take the following guide to find your missing data back.

Step 1 Run flash drive recovery

Download, install and run this USB flash drive recovering software on your computer. Ensure the flash drive is connected. Then click the refresh icon in the interface.

Step 2 Select data type and removable drive

Choose data type you want to recover and removable drive. Here you need to select your USB flash device.

Step 3 Scan deleted/lost files

This flash drive file recovery tool offers two scanning ways, "Quick Scan" and "Deep Scan". First, you can choose "Quick Scan" to try finding your Word data.

Step 4 Recover flash drive data

All the lost files will be displayed in the interface after the scanning process. This USB flash drive recovery software offers a "Filter" feature to help you quickly locate your lost files. After selecting all the data you need to rescue, simple click on Recover button will bring all lost files back to you.

You may need: How to fix USB flash drive not showing up on Mac

We mainly talk about the flash drive repair in this post. We show you several solutions to fix damaged/corrupted USB flash drive. Moreover, we tell you an effective way to recover lost files on flash drive. Hope you can easily make your flash drive repaired and find back all missing data. Feel free to leave us a message if you still have any question.