How to Fix USB Flash Drive

Fixing USB Flash Drive issues can be a small or big task depending on the type of damage, whether physical, logical or problems related to non-detection or non-recognition of devices.

Flash drives are indubitably great storage and data transporting devices and yet, just like any other product can give you reasons to frown and look out for ways to fix the USB flash drives. As someone hooked onto the PC for hours on end, facing such issues as a non-functioning, unreadable or not formatted USB drive is not uncommon. So here is a glimpse into come of the common problems that occur in memory sticks and ways to fix these USB flash drive issues.

Device Not Detected

This is one of the commonest issues with pen drives when they are said to be detected but fail to appear as an icon on you’re my Computer section. That means the device is detected by the PC but the contents remain invisible due to non-visibility of the drive in My Computer because of absence of free drive letter. To fix this you require going to the Start button and press run to type compmgmt.msc and press OK. Next open the Disk Management window from the Console tree which will have your USB portable drive icon mentioned. Go for changing drive letter and assign a new one unused by other drives on My Computer. This should pop up your USB flash drive icon.

Repairing Logical Damage

If your USB drive requires formatting or is not being recognized at all, it may be a case of logical damage that can be caused by a bad MMR table or corrupted memory chips. You can solve such issues by getting hold of a FDP Wizard which is an example of data recovery software that that does not cost you much either.

If your drive hardware shows no problem and you have sufficient backup for the existing files, try reformatting the drive. This way you would lose your data but will be able to get back your flash drive for reusing. Formatting can be done with NTFS first and then with FAT32. However, if there is information in the flash drive which you cannot afford to lose in any way do not try formatting. Instead, take a look into the drive to check for burnt fuses which can be a cause of the problem.

Just like a this, you require taking off the external casing and probe into the cube-shaped components present on the circuit boards with the help of a magnifying glass. A burnt or black component indicates a fuse and needs professional help for recovering data.

Repairing Physical Damage

Many a time USBs tend to get tampered physically because of external impacts or components which might have failed. At times the tip of the USB port gets bent while plugging in which case the connector requires to be rectified or for more complicated issues the components of the circuit board need to be rebuilt. If your USB drive contains data that is of not much importance and will not matter much if lost you can try fixing the issue yourself. For this you require certain tools such as soldering iron that comes with flux and solder, flathead screwdriver a USB cable, wire cutters and magnifying glass.

Take off the external casing of the drive with the screwdriver and take a thorough look at the solder pads and circuit board. If the PCB or solder pads are in proper condition, put down the USB with the solder pads on the upper side and connector pointing at you. The USB cable is then stripped of at one end and then address the four wires inside each of which should be similarly cut off, exposing 0.25 inch. These four exposed wires require soldering to the solder pads in the right order of color, namely red, white, green and black when looked from right to left.  Insert the USB cable to your computer and check if it can be recognized. If not, well, you require the hands of a professional to see if they can set it right.