How to Repair a Flash Drive

USB flash drives are great for transferring files from one computer to another, backing up important documents, or even as a storage device as long as you use aflash drive backup program. Since you’re reading this blog post, that last bit of advice is probably a day too late. As you have discovered, flash drives are fragile little devices that can break or stop working in the blink of an eye. The good news is that there is a very good chance your flash drive can be repaired. So go ahead, breathe a sigh of relief, and read on.

Repairing a flash drive with logical damage

Logical damage refers to flash drive failure at the file-system level. Bad blocks in the memory chip or a lost or corrupted MBR table are two causes of logical damage. Some common indications are a USB device not recognized notification, a drive that says it needs to be formatted, or a drive that doesn’t show up at all.

Fixing a flash drive with logical damage can often times be accomplished with free data recover software like Power Data Recovery by MiniTool. After downloading and installing PDR, Just select your drive from the list and choose Lost Partition Recovery to attempt to recover your files. If your drive is not showing up at all, try following the steps in this blog post.

How to fix a physically damaged flash drive

In most cases, flash drives become physically damaged either due to impact or failed components. Repairing a flash drive that was bent while inserted into a USB port usually involves replacing the connector or in some cases rebuilding a damaged circuit board. If we suspect a failed component or components, we will search our database to see what are the most commonly failed components for this particular flash drive and also use other troubleshooting techniques to identify the parts that need to be replaced.

If we can’t identify the failed components, don’t have the part in stock, or if the circuit board is damaged beyond repair, our next step is to remove the memory chip from the flash drive and either place it on a new flash drive or, as a last resort, place it on one of our NAND memory chip readers.

Over the years FlashDrivePros has truly become a world leader in flash drive data recovery. We have a 94% success rate and are so confident we can recover your files from your broken flash drive that we offer a 100% no data – no fee guarantee. By making our client's files available for download from our secure online server, we’re often able to recover and deliver their files in less than 24 hours.

Click here to initiate a online service request now. Or for more information, give us a call or send us an email. We’re happy to speak with you and answer any questions you have about our data recovery services or flash drive recovery in general.