Formatting micro SD from Kingston. Free programs for repairing 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:

detected as a storage device in Disk Management,
was correctly defined in Explorer,
read and wrote data.

As a result of repairing a USB flash drive, it is easy to lose all the data on it, while it will be available for writing and reading.

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 detected as an 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 motherboard of your PC or laptop.

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. The approximate cost of USB replacement is $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 flash drive repair company 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. What was the warranty repair - a mobile device or a memory card? 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.

The only possible solution (if the files are not particularly important) is to 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 standard Windows tools, 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 the saved information to your 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.

Almost every person who, in one way or another, is associated with computers, at least once, has encountered the problem of a flash card malfunction. It can be expressed in different ways: Windows doesn't see the flash drive, refuses to format it, occur copying failures and moving files or the wrong amount of memory is detected.

You can restore a Kingston drive using special software

Most simple cases can be cured by easy formatting of a flash drive using the Windows operating system. To do this, you need to insert it into the computer and after identifying it, go to My Computer, right-click on the drive and select Format. After successful formatting, the system will notify you about this.

If, after formatting, problems remain or it ends in failure, for example, the operating system generates an error - “Windows cannot complete formatting,” then you need to try another method. For example, Kingston provides special tools for its drives to restore their functionality. The Kingston flash drive recovery program can be easily downloaded from the company’s official website, in the support section. After downloading it you need unpack and run. In the window that opens, select the desired drive and click Format. After formatting in a special way, the flash drive should work.

Another method worth trying is to use low level formatting program. Such a program, for example, D-Soft Flash Doctor or similar. It is not targeted at any specific drive or manufacturer, so it can format any flash drives and memory cards.

If all these actions lead to nothing, then there are serious problems with the controller.

Restoring a Kingston flash drive using firmware

You can restore a flash drive by using a special utility for low-level firmware of its controller. But there are situations when the device really cannot be helped by anything other than physical intervention, such as soldering or connecting to special devices.

If the drive has the following viability criteria, then there is still a chance to restore it:

Windows detects the flash drive when it is plugged into the computer port;
after inserting the flash drive into the connector, the system automatically asks for formatting;
the drive identifies itself, is visible in the system, and when accessed, the message “Insert disk...” is displayed;
systematic errors when copying or moving files to a flash drive;
Slow speed of the drive as a whole.

Before you restore the Kingston flash drive, you need to find out the controller identifiers. You need two of them, the first - VID, contains the manufacturer's identifier. The second is PID, which stands for product code. You need to determine them with a utility like Flash Drive Information Extractor. Once you receive them, you can write them down somewhere.

Finding a recovery utility

Directly to carry out the firmware, you will need a special utility that can flash the flash drive controller at a low level. Such special programs are usually only available from equipment manufacturers. With their help, they carry out initial firmware, repair and testing of devices. Sometimes these utilities end up online by accident, and sometimes manufacturers share them. But the whole problem is that each manufacturer has its own utility, which can be different depending on the controller model and the amount of memory.

To find the right program specifically for the model being reanimated, you will need SID and PID. There is one service on the network called Flashboot.ru, which stores thousands of utilities for flashing various devices and gadgets.

You must enter the received numbers into the SID and PID fields and click search. The service can display several program options at once. You need to choose the one whose description indicates the corresponding volume of the drive being restored. The list may also contain utilities for other manufacturers. You need to remember that you need to restore the Kingston flash drive, so select the most suitable configuration from the list. The Utils field describes the name of the program. After finding the desired line in the list, you need to copy the name of the utility and go to the files section of the flashboot.ru website. You need to paste the copied name into the search bar and click find.

After finding the utility, you need to download it to your computer and unpack it. Sometimes a situation arises when the program you are looking for is not in the files. Then you can simply search for her by name in any search engine.

Using a program to recover a Kingston flash drive

Using the utility is the simplest part of the operation. You just need to insert the USB flash drive, launch the program and click on the Start button in the program. Of course, the design, localization and operating methods of different utilities for different flash drives may be different, but the essence is the same, and it is intuitive. After successful flashing of the controller, the operating system may immediately offer to format the revived flash drive.

If all else fails

If nothing helped or the utility was never found, this means that, most likely, one of the modules of the drive’s electrical circuit is physically damaged. In such a situation, only a service center can help. Specialists will be able to physically connect to the contacts of the flash drive and analyze or scan for damage. If the flash drive can be repaired, then it will be repaired, but if not, then nothing will help it.

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 various ways to fix USB drive errors by manipulating drivers, actions in Windows Disk Management or using the 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 your email address (not verified), then the UFD_Recover_Tool ZIP archive is downloaded, which contains the SP Recovery Utility (requires .NET Framework 3.5 components for operation, will download 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 automatically performing the 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 the serial number of the flash drive (so that exactly what is required is downloaded) as in the screenshot below.

After downloading, run the downloaded utility and follow a few simple steps to restore the 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 of Apacer Repair Utility (which, however, cannot be found on the official website), as well as Apacer Flash Drive Repair Tool, available for download on the official pages of some of the Apacer flash drives (look specifically on the official website 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 is a free utility for low-level formatting of flash drives, 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 don't 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 obtain 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 for repairing a USB drive did not help, try.