Firmware for usb flash drives. Flash drive recovery: controller detection, flash drive firmware

USB flash drives have now firmly entered our lives as an inexpensive and at the same time quite reliable means of storing data. The cost of a gigabyte of storage capacity for flash drives is quite low, and the ease of working with it (combined with its small size, weight and resistance to vibration and temperature influences) makes flash drives so popular.

But, as with any technically complex device, various troubles also happen with a flash drive, ranging from file system failures or firmware destruction to physical breakdowns (usually). Due to the low cost of the device itself, repairs may not be justified and the drive is sent to the trash heap. Or not even in the trash, but lying somewhere on a shelf or in a desk drawer. Meanwhile, you can try to solve many device malfunctions yourself with a fairly high probability of success.

If The flash drive suddenly stopped being detected as a storage volume or flash drive reading speed or recording to a flash drive Very fell hard, and also if File system errors keep appearing, you can try to reflash the flash drive. Chinese flash drives, popular at one time, with huge volumes, files on which are written but not read back, can also be cured!

The flashing procedure itself consists of updating the microcode of the USB controller, but you can perform a number of useful actions:

Excluding “bad” blocks from memory. In this case, the flash drive will lose a little in volume (by the volume of excluded blocks), but its stable operation will return.
Restoring the true storage capacity. This fixes the problem when the flash drive is flashed with a larger capacity than the memory chips installed on it. Then the data is simply overwritten cyclically, which makes it impossible to read large files written earlier.
Dividing a flash drive into partitions (also creating virtual CD-ROM partitions), additional partitions mounted in read mode, etc.
Changing identification data (VID, PID, Serial number). .

So, if you decide to flash the firmware, remember one simple thing:

Flashing is fatal for data stored on memory chips. No one can give any guarantee of data recovery (or that the flash drive will work after flashing).

Let's continue.

Determining the model of the controller chip

The most reliable way is to open the flash drive case and read the model of the controller chip (a small chip, usually square in shape, surrounded by legs on all sides). Memory chips are most often rectangular, surrounded by legs on only two sides:

We rewrite all the information from the chip: Phison(brand) and PS2251-60-5(series). This data will be useful to us to find suitable firmware. Incorrectly selected firmware can permanently “kill” a flash drive, so you need to be careful.

If it is not possible to disassemble the flash drive (for example, without damaging the case), then you can use programs to determine the flash drive chip using the software method. This method is less reliable, but nevertheless quite popular. Personally, I use the ChipGenius 4.00 program, but any other program with similar functions will do:

Also, as shown in the screenshot, you can pull out the VID and PID of the flash drive. These are Vendor Identifier and Product Identifier, respectively.

Looking for firmware for a flash drive

Where are we looking? As usual, on the Internet. In particular, a fairly good resource is flashboot.ru, section “Files” to search by controller model or iFlash to search by VID/PID database:

Searching by VID/PID gives a lot of results; you need to select those options that most fully describe our flash drive (model, capacity, etc.).

A search by controller model finds no less firmware; you need to try different options, because the first time you may not even get the firmware that is intended for this chip.

Flash drive firmware

The general appearance of programs for flashing flash drives is approximately the same. We take out and insert the flash drive (first make sure that no other flash drives are plugged in - this will be easier and safer). When the flash drive appears in one of the program fields, press the Start button (to start flashing) or, if you want to dig into the detailed settings (in particular, create an additional partition, etc.), then press the Setting button.

The firmware process can take quite a long time, since blocks are tested for read/write suitability, “bad” blocks are deleted, the entire memory space is reformatted, etc. But when the process is completed, you can check the flash drive in the system itself.

This instruction was compiled in the process of restoring the functionality of the USB Flash Drive Transcend JetFlash V60 4GB (screenshots were taken with the Transcend JetFlash V33 4GB, since the V60 was returned to the happy owner) and does not pretend to be a complete description of all the nuances, but is only intended for those who do not know where to start.
When starting the process of restoring Flash Drive functionality, you must consider the following points.

Do not try to run this program if you are counting on recovering data stored on a flash drive, because it will perform a low-level format of the device and lose all recorded data.
Before starting the program, you must save the “initial” configuration file AlcorMP.ini in a separate directory, because during the setup process this file will be changed according to the type of your USB Flash Drive. Next time, before you insert another model of flash drive for repair, you must restore the previously saved “initial” configuration file AlcorMP.ini, otherwise an error message will appear.
After running the AlcorMP program, the USB safe removal icon may disappear; to restore the icon, try running LoadDriver.exe and performing Unstall (it says so there;). To prevent the safe removal of USB devices icon from disappearing, just check the box next to Uninstall Driver When Close MP in the Setup-BadBlock tab (see Figure 1.12).
When using the program, we follow the rule - first we launch the program, then insert the flash drive, after processing we close the program - then disconnect the flash drive.
The program and higher, before disconnecting the flash drive, you can not close if you use the Eject (E) button specially designed for unmounting the flash drive in the main menu (see Figure 1.1). Also, the number of recognized memory chips has been increased to 239 (parameter Count=239 in the FlashList.ini file) versus 221 (Count=221) in . Otherwise, the program interface is the same, so this instruction is also suitable for earlier versions of AlcorMP programs. Experience will tell you which version of the program to use for your flash drive; the “latest” version does not always guarantee success, for example, the utility incorrectly processed the Transcend flash drive on an outdated AU6982 controller, but it did it easily; the principle of the release time of the controller and the corresponding time of creation of the configuration utility usually works.
If you are reading these instructions, then, I hope, this means that the stage of determining the type of flash drive controller chip has already been completed, and your flash drive uses one of the following controllers - Alcor AU7640, AU6981, AU6982, AU6983, AU6984, AU6986, AU3150 (AU3150B51/C53 is used in MP3 player).
If your flash drive has an AU6980, AU9380 controller installed, then the AlcorMP family utilities will not work.

Main menu of the program Figure 1.1.

Main menu of the AlcorMP program (081208) Figure 1.2.

After starting AlcorMP (081208), you can insert a USB Flash Drive, and for the first time a program message about performing preliminary settings may appear with a requirement to remove the flash drive and restart the program and then insert the flash drive again - do it. The Setup Info section shows the current (at the time the program was launched) settings; we won’t pay attention to them for now; we’ll go through all the necessary parameters further.
The USB port into which you insert the flash drive must be in good working order; it is best to insert it directly into the motherboard connector, without distortion. It is not advisable to use connectors on the front panel, as well as extension cords - these types of connections can cause problems.

Figure 1.3.

Information about the flash drive can appear in any of the sixteen windows, as can be seen in Figure 1.3. The flash drive is in the sixth compartment. If you now click on the “G” button to the left of the inscription about the flash drive, then the information about the flash drive will not be entirely correct, although you can see and write down the serial number of the flash drive on a piece of paper if you want to leave it for this device. To get to the settings menu, press Setup(S).

Figure 1.4.

The program prompts you to set a password, leave the fields empty and click the “Ok” button. Now several sections of settings are available, let's look at and configure them one by one.

Figure 1.5.

The name of the manufacturer and the type of memory chip used will appear in the Flash Type section; we do not change anything in this section. In the MP Setup\Optimize section there are three values available: Speed optimize\Capacity optimize\LLF Set optimize, select Speed optimize, then the writing speed to the flash drive will be high. If you select Capacity optimize, the flash drive will be optimized for a larger volume (by reducing the cluster size), but the writing speed will drop (2-4 times relative to Speed optimize). In exceptional cases, if after processing a flash drive with the Speed optimize parameter the device malfunctions, then use the Capacity optimize method.

Figure 1.6.

The LLF Set optimize method without checking for Bad blocks has no advantages over Speed optimize, use it only if you are 100% sure of the reliability of the flash drive. On this tab you can further experiment with Scan Level.

Figure 1.7

Full Scan1 is the most reliable, but also the longest, a 4GB Transcend JetFlash V60 flash drive is checked for about five minutes, if you are tasked with restoring a dead flash drive, then it makes sense to stick with this method, and if there is no doubt about the serviceability of the memory chip, then you can choose Fast Scan4 – the check will take up to 1 minute.
Let's move on to the next tab (at the top) Mode (Figure 1.8).

Figure 1.8.

We choose Pure Disk if we are interested in a regular flash drive in its understanding (one logical partition - one letter in Explorer). If desired, in the Volume level field we assign a name - what will appear in the explorer after the logical letter, and also in the Disk SN field we indicate the serial number of the logical disk (not to be confused with the serial number of the flash drive itself). Volume level and Disk SN may not be specified. If you move the slider pointer from 0%, then two partitions will be created in the specified percentage, and the fields for assigning Volume level and Disk SN to the second partition will open to change (Figure 1.9).

Figure 1.9.

If desired, in the Copy to FDisk field you can specify the path to external files that will be copied to the first partition, and if two partitions are created, the Copy to SDisk field will open for the copied files of the second partition. If, in addition, you check the Write protect box, then the files in the selected FDisk and SDisk partitions will be read-only.

Figure 1.10

Pay attention to the LED Set parameter, when its value is OFF, this means that the indicator on the flash drive, after installing the flash drive in the USB port after detection, will be turned off (it will blink when sending data), and if ON, the indicator on the flash drive will always be on (when data transfer will blink), even during idle moments. If you do not understand what is being discussed in this paragraph, then set the values in this tab as in the screenshot.

To create a bootable CD-ROM partition on a flash drive, read the article Creating a CD-ROM partition on a flash drive (for Alcor AU6983, AU6984, AU6986 controllers).

Before moving on to the next tab, let's check the Setup-Mode settings; for a regular flash drive, they should correspond to Figure 1.8.

Let's move on to the next tab (at the top) Information (Figure 1.11).

Figure 1.11.

In the VID, PID field the information is already present, the utility substitutes them itself, if it is empty here, then enter the correct VID, PID (VID=058F, PID=6387-preferred, PID=9380 is acceptable, PID=1234 is undesirable). You don’t have to touch the SCSI and USB fields, I have the data written here for a specific flash drive, these names will be visible in Windows for this flash drive. To run Transcend utilities, you must fill in the Vender String field with JetFlash. In the SN Set section, check the Fix Set checkbox and write in the SN field the serial number of the flash drive (the one that was first written down on a piece of paper) in the 8digit or 20digit format; in the 20digit format, the missing digits up to twenty are filled in with zeros, which is not always convenient. If you do not enter the serial number field, the program will assign it itself, generating it randomly when you select the Random Set item.

Let's move on to the next tab (at the top) BadBlock (Figure 1.12).
Here we leave everything as in the screenshot, by default formatting is performed in FAT32, if you need a different file system, then create it later, after restoring the flash drive’s functionality with other third-party formatting utilities. As was already noted at the very beginning, the presence of a checkbox in the Uninstall Driver When Close MP line allows you to automatically unload the USB bus drivers necessary for the utility to work upon completion of the AlcorMP program. The operating system will continue to use its native USB support drivers and the USB Safe Remove Hardware icon will appear in the tray. If you uncheck the box, the AlcorMP drivers will not be unloaded and will replace the “native” ones, then the safe removal icon for flash drives will not appear when a flash drive is connected.

Figure 1.12.

Go to the next tab (at the top) Other (Figure 1.13).
In this tab, we do not touch the Compel Specify Flash section; it will indicate the manufacturer and type of flash memory chip, which the program determined automatically. But you need to pay close attention to the Support for other types of controller or not section. By default, there is no checkbox in this line and therefore the six types of controllers specified in this section are not available for selection. If the list of six shaded controller types does not include the one used in your flash drive (for example, AU6982, AU6986...), then do not check any boxes and leave this section as is.

Figure 1.13.

And if you find yours in the list of six shaded controller types, you must select it. For example, your flash drive has AU6983 installed, then the Other section should be as shown in Figure 1.14.

Figure 1.14.

After setting up Setup, click the OK button in the lower right corner and return to the main screen of the utility. Everything is ready to start the recovery process, click Start(A). If an unexpected stop occurs, or you yourself interrupt the process, remembering something important, a device error message will appear where information about the flash drive is displayed. You must press Refresh® to return to the previous state (before Start(A)). After starting the utility with the pre-configured parameters indicated above, the following sequence of operations is performed:

Erasing... (Figure 1.15).

Figure 1.15.

Scanning for Bad Blocks...

Figure 1.16.

Formatting...
Moreover, formatting can slip almost unnoticed.

Figure 1.17.

After successful completion of the process, information about the flash drive is displayed in green font.

Figure 1.18.

To view detailed information, press F – Status, we get the following picture.

Figure 1.19

Original Bad Block are bad blocks that were fixed on the flash drive at the production stage. All that remains is to close the program, remove the flash drive, insert it again and observe the “brand new, working” flash drive.

Attention!!!
The author of the article is not responsible for possible damage that you may cause to your equipment during the creative process. All attempts to shift responsibility to anyone, directly or indirectly, are untenable. Everything is in your hands (and head), make a decision and get down to business! All information provided in the article was obtained empirically, from messages in various forums and has a high degree of reliability as it has been verified. However, no one is immune from mistakes and misconceptions. For the truth to prevail, do your research. I wish you good luck!

First of all, it is necessary to mention in what cases it is required flash drive controller firmware. The list of such faults is not very long; just below I have made a list of the most common situations when this technique can help in repairing a flash drive. But you should not perceive the technique described here as a panacea for all “diseases”. Each case is individual, but the general methodology is similar, with the exception of some issues that are associated with different controllers, memory chips and a different combination of faults. You can also read others on the blog.

When to use the flash drive controller firmware technique:

Zero capacity of the flash drive, incorrect volume (2\4\8\16 KB\MB) instead of the normal size;
The drive is not detected on different PCs;
When connecting a disk, the “insert disk” error appears;
Error “Disk not found in device”;
Error “The disk is write protected”;
Read/write errors occur and there is no way to copy or write data to the flash drive. It may be that data is written but not opened from the flash drive;
When connected to a PC, the flash drive is detected for a long time with errors “Error “Code 10”, Error “Code 43” and the like.

I may not have mentioned everything here. If anyone has any additions, write your case in the comments, and I will try to promptly make adjustments to the materials.

We move on to preparatory work on the flash drive for its further flashing (the controller itself is being flashed). We will assume that we have decided that there are no other options except flash drive controller firmware We don’t have any left and this is the last chance to repair a precious flash drive (road like memory, large volume, beautiful case, etc.)

Flash drive controller firmware (work stages):

1) Determination of the flash drive controller

Here we have only 2 options for determining the manufacturer and model of the controller. The first option is the most banal - open the case (if this is structurally possible). To do this, you need to open the casing of the flash drive and remove the drive board from there. For the most part, all USB flash drives are the same internally, with the exception of monolithic flash drives. As an example, I took a photo of the general view of the flash drive board and controller (using the example of a photo of a flash drive from free sources).

The visual method is very simple and most accurate, since programs for determining pid&vid devices are not always accurate. If it is not possible to look at the controller visually or there are difficulties in disassembling the case, then we have a direct path to programs for determining pid and vid flash drives.
Important: In cases where the flash drive is not detected on the PC, the controller can only be identified by visual inspection.

Determining the controller by PID and VID

2) Selecting a utility for the controller

The next step is to search for a specialized utility for flashing the flash drive controller. We already have the VID and PID values, so we can start looking for a utility for the controller. To find the required utility, I use the service http://flashboot.ru/iflash/.

After pressing the search button, it offers us more than one result. The thing is that such a controller, as in my case, is used in flash drives from different manufacturers and with different sizes. When searching, pay attention to the UTILS (utilities) field, where you need to look for exactly the result where the name of the utility is displayed. You don’t have to pay attention to the size of the flash drive - this is not a critical parameter. You can also search for a utility by the name of the controller, which can greatly speed up the search for the required utility.

P.S. practice shows that sometimes it is worth trying different versions of utilities for the same controllers.

The search result gave us one more or less suitable option (highlighted in red in the screenshot) - the utility SMI SM3257AA.

To download the utility, you can use the same site http://flashboot.ru/files/. In the search bar you need to enter the name of our utility - SMI SM3257AA. As a result, 2 results were found. You need to download both, since there is a chance that one of them will only help solve our problem.

But, there is one thing. We know for sure that the exact name of our controller is slightly different from what we found. On the controller body and program USB Flash Information showed that the correct name of the controller SM3257ENAA, not SM3257AA. To clear our conscience, let’s check the utility database to see if there is a utility for such a modification. Search dropped 2 utility options.

Most likely, the utilities that I found when searching for SM3257AA and ENAA have the same core. In practice, it may turn out that they are no different, but there is still a possibility that you will need to try all 4 specials found. utilities. I recommend downloading all 4 programs at once.

I downloaded all 4 pieces, but decided to start with the utility SMI SM3257ENAA MPTool V2.03.58 v8 K1129 (11/11/29 Build). Let me get ahead of myself - I managed to reflash the flash drive controller with this utility, and I did not check others.
Now I will briefly describe the procedure for flashing the firmware of the SM3257ENAA controller.

— Unpacked the archive and launched the shortcut sm32Xtest_V58-8

We launch the utility and see that our patient flash drive is not visible in it (see screenshot).

— To identify our flash drive in the program, press the button “ Scan USB (F5)”, as a result of which the program “sees” the usb device.

To start the process of flashing the flash drive controller, you need to click the Start button in the utility menu (before clicking, you need to select the desired flash drive). After pressing the button, the firmware process will begin.

After completing the firmware operation, in the upper right corner we will see the word OK on a green background (see screenshot).

This completes the process of flashing the flash drive controller. Within 10-20 seconds, our flash drive will appear in My Computer, clean and without any files, since low-level formatting of the drive occurs during the firmware process.

For any questions regarding this article, write in the comments.

Transcend removable storage devices are used by a very large number of users around the world. It’s not surprising, because these flash drives are very inexpensive and last quite a long time. But sometimes some kind of misfortune happens to them - information is lost due to damage to the drive.

This can happen for various reasons. Some flash drives fail because someone dropped them, others simply because they are old. In any case, every user who has a Transcend removable drive should know how to recover data on it if it has been lost.

There are proprietary utilities that allow you to very quickly recover data from Transcend USB drives. But there are also programs that are designed for all flash drives, but they work especially well with Transcend products. In addition, the standard Windows data recovery method often helps when working with flash drives from this company.

Method 1: RecoverRx

This utility allows you to recover data from flash drives and protect them with a password. It also allows you to format drives from Transcend. Suitable for absolutely all removable media from Transcend and is proprietary software for this product. To use RecoveRx for data recovery, follow these steps:

Method 2: JetFlash Online Recovery

This is another proprietary utility from Transcend. Its use looks extremely simple.

Method 3: JetDrive Toolbox

It’s interesting that the developers position this tool as software for Apple computers, but it also works very well on Windows. To perform a restore using JetDrive Toolbox, follow these steps:

JetDrive Toolbox actually works exactly the same as RecoveRx. The difference is that there are many more tools.

Method 4: Transcend Autoformat

If none of the above-mentioned standard recovery utilities help, you can use Transcend Autoformat. True, in this case the flash drive will be immediately formatted, that is, there will be no chance of extracting any data from it. But it will be restored and ready for work.

Using Transcend Autoformat is extremely easy.

and run it.
At the top, select the letter of your storage medium. Below, indicate its type - SD, MMC or CF (just check the box next to the desired type).
Click on the button Format" to begin the formatting process.

Method 5: D-Soft Flash Doctor

This program is famous for running at a low level. Judging by user reviews, it is very effective for Transcend flash drives. Repairing removable media using D-Soft Flash Doctor is done as follows:

If repairs using all the above methods do not help restore the media, you can use the standard Windows recovery tool.

Method 6: Windows Recovery Tool

Judging by the reviews, these 6 methods are the most optimal in the case of a damaged Transcend flash drive. Less efficient in this case is the EzRecover program. How to use it, read the review on our website. You can also use D-Soft Flash Doctor and JetFlash Recovery Tool. If none of these methods help, your best bet is to simply buy a new removable storage device and use it.