iTunes Errors 

Smartbuy 16 GB flash drive is not detected. Recovery of a flash drive and further treatment of a USB drive. Reflashing a damaged flash drive

There are several solutions for creating data backups:

  1. Applications built into the operating system. Microsoft Windows provides data backup methods that involve saving files and data on external or built-in storage media. All modern versions of Windows already include the ability to create a backup copy of necessary files or the entire hard drive, if necessary. The functions provided by Windows are complete and independent, and are aimed at ensuring that you do not need to use third-party services or programs.
  2. Copying data manually. You can always use the old proven method of creating a data backup - manually copying the data to an external storage medium. This is a long process, but if you work with a small amount of data, this solution may be quite acceptable for you.
  3. Online services. Recently, the most modern method of data backup has become increasingly popular - these are numerous online services. Companies that provide backup of your files directly on the Internet. A small background application installed on the computer creates copies of the necessary data and stores them on a remote server. However, the volumes provided by such companies for storing your files in the free version do not allow them to be used as a comprehensive solution. Often the space offered for data backup does not exceed 10 GB, so there is no need to talk about creating a backup copy of the entire hard drive. Such services are rather aimed at reserving a separate number of files.
  4. Creating a disk image. This is the most complete data backup solution used by advanced users. This method involves using a third-party program to create an image of the entire disk, which can be deployed, if necessary, on another storage medium. Using this solution, you can in a short period of time gain access to all the data that was on the disk at the time of its backup: documents, programs and media files.

Mirex flash drive models for 64gb, 32gb, 16gb, 8gb, 4gb, 2 gb:

  • ARTON;
  • BINAR;
  • KNIGHT;
  • RABBIT;
  • ROCKET DARK;
  • DRAGON;
  • HARBOR;
  • CHROMATIC;
  • TURNING KNIFE;
  • Crab;

Many users are familiar with the situation when a flash drive is no longer detected by the operating system. This could happen for many reasons - from unsuccessful formatting to a sudden power outage. In this article we will look at ways to recover flash drives using special programs.

On the Internet you can find many software products designed to bring non-working flash drives back to life. There are both universal programs and proprietary utilities from drive manufacturers. Let's look at several methods using different software.

Method 1: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

First in line will be HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. This program is able to “see” drives that are undetectable by the system and perform recovery operations.

Installation


Recovery process

First, let's try to scan and correct errors.

In order to recover a flash drive after unsuccessful formatting, it must be formatted again.

This method allows you to quickly and reliably restore a USB flash drive after unsuccessful formatting, software or hardware failures, as well as the crooked hands of some users.

Method 2: EzRecover

EzRecover is positioned by its developers exclusively as a tool for restoring “dead” drives. The program can bring a flash drive back to life if Windows "sees" like her "Security Device", does not define at all or shows the volume equal to zero in the properties. The condition for using the utility is that the storage capacity is limited to no more than 4 GB.

Installation


Recovery process


Method 3: Branded utilities

Many flash drive manufacturers develop their own programs to restore their drives. If such software exists for your device, it is recommended to use it to achieve maximum efficiency. Below we provide links to instructions for using proprietary utilities from different manufacturers.


USB flash drive is not detected when connected to a computer or laptop? Can't you write anything on it? And you can’t even format the flash drive? In principle, all is not lost. Most likely the problem lies with the controller. But this can be fixed. And everything will take a maximum of 5-10 minutes.


The only caveat is that restoring the flash drive’s functionality is only possible if it has no mechanical damage. That is, if you disabled it not through “Safely Remove” (or something like that), then this can be fixed. At the very least, it’s worth at least trying to restore a non-working flash drive.


Even if it seems that the USB flash drive has come to an end, you should not take it for repairs. And even more so throw it away. First, you can try to restore the damaged flash drive. How? Especially for this purpose, below are detailed instructions for restoring a flash drive.


The instructions work for all USB flash drives: Silicon Power, Kingston, Transcend, Data Traveler, A-Data, etc. With its help, you can restore the file system and fix any problems (except mechanical damage).


So, the first thing you need to do is determine the parameters of the USB flash drive. Or rather, its VID and PID. Based on this information, you can determine the brand of the controller, and then select a utility that will help restore a damaged flash drive.


To find out these parameters, do the following:


  1. Connect the flash drive to your PC or laptop and go to Start – Control Panel – Device Manager.

  2. Find the "USB Controllers" section.

  3. Double-click on it and look for the “USB storage device” item. This is your flash drive (let me remind you, it must be connected to the computer).

  4. Right-click on it and select “Properties”.

  5. In the new window, go to the “Details” tab.

  6. In the “Property” field, select the “Equipment ID” (or “Instance Code”) item.

  7. Look at the VID and PID values ​​and remember them.

    In this screenshot, the VID is 090C and the PID is 1000.


  8. Next, go to the website, enter your values ​​at the top of the site and click the “Search” button.

  9. You are looking for the model of your USB flash drive (by manufacturer and memory capacity). In the right column “Utils” there will be the name of the program with which you can try to restore a non-working flash drive.

After that, all that remains is to find this utility by name or follow the link (if it exists) and download it.


Restoring flash drives from Kingstone, Silicon Power, Transcend and other models is easy: just run the program and follow the instructions.


What to do if you have not found a suitable utility for your model? To do this, go to Google or Yandex and write something like this: “Silicon Power 4 GB VID 090C PID 1000” (of course, you should indicate the parameters of your flash drive here). And then look what the search engine found.



Never use programs that are not suitable for the VID and PID parameters of your controller! Otherwise, you will “kill” the flash drive completely, and you will no longer be able to restore it.


In most cases, recovery of a damaged flash drive is successful. And after that it will be detected when connected to a PC or laptop.



This is how you repair a flash drive yourself using a free utility. The instructions for restoring flash drives may seem complicated, but you can do it. After all, all you need is to determine the controller parameters and download the program for free. In addition, this procedure takes about 5-10 minutes.


And most importantly: in this way it is possible to restore a damaged flash drive in 80% of cases. While most specialized programs may not be able to cope with this task.

USB flash drive is an external storage device that operates on the principle of a hard drive. Just like hard drives, flash drives are subject to typical failures associated with board short circuits, cluster failures, and poor product quality. When faced with such problems, users are forced to seek the help of specialists to restore the flash drive.

Determining whether a flash drive is inoperable

USB drives were created for the convenience of storing information so that the user could save the necessary file on any computer at any time or exchange the necessary information with another user. It is precisely because of the frequency of use that the media quickly wears out, as a result of which the microcircuits fail, the contact group becomes loose and the computer ceases to recognize the flash drive or identifies it as an unreadable disk.

The main signs of a flash drive failure:

  1. Frequent file system crashes. Instead of NTFS, FAT32 becomes RAW and an unknown file system, as a result of which the user has to format the media, which leads to the complete loss of all information stored on the flash drive.
  2. The computer detects the media is intermittent.

Treatment of removable media

If a user is faced with the problem of their removable storage device failing, do not immediately fall into despair and throw away the flash drive. You can try to restore it before throwing it away using various software. Typically, each manufacturer provides for a force majeure event that a buyer of their products may encounter, and releases diagnostic and flash drive recovery software. You can download the programs on the manufacturer's official website.

There are also universal programs that can try to cope with such a task as curing a flash drive.

Programs for USB recovery:

  1. SDFormatter performs low-level formatting, the so-called flash drive disinfection, after which you can try to recover files from a working flash drive.
  2. D-Soft Flash Doctor also deals with low-level formatting, but at the same time it detects damaged sectors and can restore them by reassigning them to backup ones.
  3. The site is a universal assistant for the user during recovery. The iFlash section has all kinds of programs for any drive.

Data recovery

If the treatment procedure was successful, all the information will remain on the USB drive and you can continue to use it as usual. But if you had to resort to regular or low-level formatting, then after such a procedure all information will be destroyed. You can try to recover the necessary data using special programs:

  1. Recuva. The program is distributed free of charge. Thanks to a simple, intuitive interface, any user can understand the functionality. But information recovery rates are at a high level.
  2. Wise Data Recovery allows you to recover from various types of media, such as: mp3 player, cameras, phone memory cards.
  3. Pandora Recovery is a lesser-known version of a free program for recovering deleted files, but it copes with its responsibilities no worse than its more popular counterparts.

Similar programs work according to the same scenario.

A complete analysis of the marked disk partitions or selected drives is performed. The user can then select the recovery method - express or manual, and also mark the file types that require attention. After the analysis is completed, the user must select the folder into which the files will be restored and wait for the process to complete.

After which you can check the files for integrity and functionality. If the restoration procedure does not produce results, it can be repeated, changing the type of analysis to a deeper one.

If the result is negative again, you can try using another program until the desired result is achieved.

If you use a removable drive carefully, choose a well-known company, do not expose the device to external factors and do not insert it into unreliable computers, then the equipment will serve without failures for many years.

How to recover an SD card or USB flash drive if the computer does not see it, does not read or write data? Problems with flash drives are rarely caused by natural wear and tear. More often, problems with them are caused by users ignoring the rules for safely removing the device, experiments with various software in which these flash drives are involved, as well as their initially lousy quality. Below we will consider a list of possible actions carried out in the Windows environment that can solve the problem, unless, of course, the cause lies in a mechanical failure. And we, friends, will go from simple to complex.

Recovering SD cards and USB flash drives in Windows

  • Note: below we will only talk about restoring the functionality of flash drives, but not about saving the data stored on them. This is a separate topic, and there is something about this on the website; you can also use this program for. Most of the methods proposed below for recovering SD cards and flash drives will lead to the loss of their data.

1. Hardware lock

SD cards, MicroSD adapters and flash drives can be hardware protected from writing data or completely blocked even for reading. On such devices there is a lock switch, which must, accordingly, be set to the “Unlocked” position.

2. Problems not related to the drives themselves

The cause of problems with SD cards and flash drives may be Windows security policy. You need to find out whether access to removable drives is blocked (in whole or in part of writing data to them) by the computer administrator. You also need to check the card reader or USB ports of your computer. If everything is fine with the latter - the card reader reads other SD cards, but problems still arise with the flash drive, no matter how you connect it to other USB ports, move on.

3. Windows Explorer

Standard formatting using Windows Explorer can help in simple cases such as unsuccessful writing of data to a flash drive. Or when for some reason a smartphone, tablet, camera or other device cannot cope with this operation regarding SD cards. In any current version of Windows, in the Explorer window on the drive, call up the context menu and click “Format”.

We leave the original file system and first try a quick format.

If it fails, we repeat the operation, but with full formatting (uncheck the fast box).

4. Windows Disk Management

You can try to perform the formatting procedure in disk management. To launch this tool, enter in the system search field:

diskmgmt.msc

In the disk management window, focusing on the size of the drive, we look for it among the disks connected to the computer. And in the context menu called on it, we launch formatting.

You can immediately select full formatting.

If the flash drive has a partition structure like a hard drive, you must delete each of those partitions. This is done using the “Delete volume” option in the context menu.

And then, in place of the resulting unallocated space, you need to create a single partition. To do this, in the context menu on this very unallocated space, launch the “Create a new volume” operation and follow the instructions of the step-by-step wizard.

5. Programs for low-level formatting

Standard formatting tools may not help in complex cases, for example, when flash drives are displayed (in the same Explorer or Disk Management) as unrecognized devices with the RAW file system. The latter means that either the Windows environment does not understand the file system of the drive, or there is no file system as such in principle. Actually, this is what causes problems with a flash drive or SD card when it works on other devices, with other operating systems. In such cases, third-party Windows programs designed for so-called low-level formatting will help restore the flash drive.

In fact, low-level formatting is a procedure that is carried out either in the production conditions of flash device manufacturers, or in serious specialized services. Various types of Windows software that claim to perform this kind of operation actually perform a regular full format, but using mechanisms that differ from those used by the operating system. Such programs cope well with flash drive problems if these problems arise at the file system level. Let's look at two of these programs.

HDD Low Level Format Tool

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

The shareware portable program HDD Low Level Format Tool can format various types of storage media, in particular SD cards and USB flash drives. After unpacking the archive with the program, run it and agree to the license terms.

We choose free use.

Directly in the program window we indicate the problematic drive and click “Continue”.

We confirm the decision.

We wait for the operation to complete and check the operation of the media.

SDFormatter

http://flashboot.ru/files/file/355

A completely free small program called SDFormatter is another tool for so-called low-level formatting. Works with both SD cards and USB flash drives. Install SDFormatter into the system, launch it, and indicate the problematic flash drive in the “Drive” column. Click “Format”.

The program wants to make sure that our intentions are serious, click “Ok.

He asks not to touch the drive while the operation is being performed.

Upon completion, test the flash drive or SD card. If this does not help, repeat the operation with the settings for complete overwriting of sectors (nothing more than full formatting). Press “Option”, select “Full (OverWrite)”. And also click “Format” at the bottom.

If using the above methods it was not possible to revive the flash drive, and it is still under warranty, you need to stop at this stage. And do not take any further action except contact the seller with a request to replace the device. All the actions described below should be resorted to only when, in fact, there is nothing to lose. The instructions below apply to USB flash drives, SD and MicroSD cards. However, in the case of the latter, the likelihood of recovery is extremely low.

6. D-Soft Flash Doctor

D-Soft Flash Doctor performs so-called low-level formatting, and at the same time also detects damaged sectors (cells). Well, and, accordingly, knows how to block them and replace them with backup ones. The program can help when flash drives or SD cards have difficulty reading individual files located on damaged sectors. The program is free and portable. I did not find the official website, but it can be freely downloaded on the Internet.

In the D-Soft Flash Doctor window, the first thing you need to do is run a scan to detect errors.

In my case, there were no damaged (broken) sectors.

But if in your case, friends, the scan results are different and bad sectors are detected, we start the recovery process.

The window for performing this operation promises that the process will not last longer than 10 minutes, but in fact, reassigning bad sectors on a drive with a capacity larger than 4 GB can take quite a long time. So it is better to run the recovery operation at night.

7. Flashing the memory controller

Programs for so-called low-level formatting or their analogues, which in any other form claim to be able to resuscitate all types of SD cards and/or USB flash drives, turn out to be powerless in the event of a software failure of the controller, when it requires flashing. This problem can have different symptoms, but more often it is either the computer does not see the drive completely, or it sees it and can even read the data, but cannot format it by any means. In particular, due to write protection even though the drive is not locked by hardware.



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