How to Recover Files from a Corrupt or Unresponsive USB Flash Drive

Written By Oliver Powell
Approved By Tanushree Chatterjee
Updated on 23 Jan, 2024
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Summary: A USB flash drive may corrupt due to many possible reasons and put your data at risk. However, you don’t need to stress yourself out. You can recover files and folders from a corrupt or unresponsive USB flash drive by understanding the causes and applying the right solutions. To prevent unsuccessful or partial data recovery, use data recovery software.

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A USB flash drives stores all the data in its memory similar to a hard drive. The operating system can, later on, fetch this data when required to be accessed. There can be various issues that may turn your USB drive data inaccessible such as if the drive is unmounted improperly from the port then it can lead to data corruption. Another reason for the stored data corruption can be invalid data in the Master Boot Record (MBR) or Partition Boot Record (PBR) or directory structure on the USB drive.

There can be various other reasons also that may make your USB corrupt or unresponsive. This may happen either due to logical corruption or physical corruption. Some common physical corruption issues are broken stems and connectors, dead drives (no power supply), broken circuit or NAND gate, not recognized, RAW, need to format, not accessible, and Dead Drives, etc.

How to Recover Data from an Inaccessible USB Drive?

To recover data from an inaccessible USB or Flash drive, first, you must be able to identify the exact reason leading to the problem while reading the USB drive.

Reasons of USB corruption or inaccessibility can be because of:

Logical Issues
Physical Issues

Recovering Files from Logical Issues

If there are some logical/ software errors with the USB drive, you can easily fix it. You need to repair the file structure so that the USB flash drive can be used again.

This is how you can scan for logical issues using Windows:

Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your system.
Go to This PC or My Computer>Removable Disk icon.
Right click the Removable Disk Icon and open its Properties.
Click on the Tools tab.
Click Check Now button.
You will be given two check disk options “Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”.
Check both checkboxes.
Click Start. This will initiate the scanning process.
Click Close after the scan process is completed.

If you are using Windows 10 or a lower version then carry out the following steps to repair the USB Flash Drive:

Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your system
Go to This PC or My Computer>Removable Disk icon.
Right click the Removable Disk Icon and open its Properties.
Click on the Tools tab.
Click “Rebuild” button
Let the scan process get completed. Close the scan window once it’s completed.
Right-click the icon of the USB flash drive and “Eject”. Then remove the drive from the USB port.

Hopefully, this would help you solve the problem else you can try recovering your USB data using a professional usb drive data recovery tool.

Most data loss issues can be solved by using a professional USB flash drive data recovery software. You can free download such program and install it on your PC to begin scanning the device and recover data. Try Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows that supports scanning of large capacity USB drives and traces inaccessible or formatted files with their attributes and size intact.

How to Recover Files From a Corrupt USB Flash Drive using Stellar Data Recovery Professional?

You may restore your important files, documents, pictures, and more from a corrupt USB flash drive easily with the help of the professional data recovery software i.e. Stellar Data Recovery Professional. This DIY software can retrieve all types of files from a corrupt, inaccessible, or formatted USB drives.

You just need to follow the given steps to get back your data:

1. Download & install Stellar Data Recovery Professional on your Windows PC.

2. From the ‘Select What to Recover’ screen, click Everything or select specified data, and click Next. [See Image 1]

Stellar — *Image 1: Software Home screen displaying “What to Recover” options to allow selection of specific data*

3. On Recover From screen, choose the drive and click Scan. [See Image 2]

4. The scanned results will show on the screen. You may preview the files before recovering them.

5. Select the files you want to restore and click Recover. [See Image 3]

6. Browse and choose the desired location to store your retrieved data. [See Image 4]

[Caution: Do not save the recovered data in the same USB drive. Always use another drive or storage media to save this data to avoid data overwriting.]

7. Click Start-saving and wait till the process is complete. [See Image 5]

Now that you have safely recovered the files from the corrupt USB flash drive, proceed further to fix USB drive corrupt due to logical reasons with the following methods:

Recovering Files from Physical Issues.

If you have a physical error such as a broken connector, circuit board, NAND memory chip of the drive, then the hardware needs to be replaced or repaired. Doing-it-yourself can lead to even worse situations. Better you get help from the experts in this area. You can hire any trusted data recovery company like Stellar Data Recovery which is specialized in recovering data from a physically damaged USB drive.

Below we have mentioned solutions to some common causes of physical issues with your USB drive.

a. Broken Stems and Connectors, & Dead Drives (no power to the USB):

A common indication of the physical errors is some kind of error messages or troubles that you see after connecting the USB. Common error messages are “Please Insert Disk into Removable Disk” or “USB Device Not Recognized or Malfunctioned”, “you need to format the disk before using it”, RAW partition, dead or unresponsive drives, and damaged controller chips and/or circuit boards.

If the silver USB connector is broken or the circuit board is damaged it leads to power supply cut-off to the USB. In such case, soldering and circuit repair is required. It’s not advised to do it yourself as if anything goes wrong, you may permanently lose access to your USB and also it’ll reduce the chances of getting your data successfully recovered or sometimes impossible. To deal with above physical errors, specialized equipment and expertise are required. So better you hand over it to some professional and let them deal with the scenario.

b. Error: “Please Insert Disk into Removable Disk”:

This error occurs when the flash drive controller software becomes corrupt. It can also happen if there are some issues with the NAND memory. The above error can be caused by low grade or generic NAND memory chips. With a frequent number of reads and writes, the state of the drive turns worse.

The error indicates that there is some issue with the NAND memory chips. Most probably the metadata stored in the NAND memory is corrupted or wiped and it can’t be mounted then, thus turning the drive unreadable. Whenever you try to read the drive, you will get the error message “Please insert a disk into Removable Disk”. Also, if you try to check the drive size, it usually shows its capacity as 0 MB. As the device cannot be mounted on windows, if you check Device Manager under Disk drives, a different name for the USB drive will be listed. Also, the Disk Management shows a drive letter with No Media.

In such case, you need to search for manufacturers that perform USB data recovery or flash drive data recovery.

c. Undetectable USB Flash Drive:

You may not be able to use your USB drive because of some problems with the USB port, not with the USB drive. So, before performing any repair of the USB drive also make sure that the USB port is working fine.

To test the USB Port remove the USB drive, reboot your computer, and test the USB drive again. See if it works. It is possible that one port may not be working but all others are working fine. So try each port of your computer. If this doesn’t help, try the USB drive on some other computer.

Sometimes, the Installed copy of Windows OS may not be able to recognize your USB drive due to some USB version limitations.

You can fix an undetectable USB Flash Drive by drive recognition:

Go to Start> Control Panel> Device Manager.
Expand the list next to “Disk Drives” option.
You can see a down facing arrow over your USB drive. Double click it and choose the option to “Enable Device“.
Click Next.
Click ‘Next’ again.
Finally, click Finish.

After this, you need to assign the drive letter. To do so follow given steps:

Go to Start>Control Panel>System and Security>Administrative Tools then choose “Computer Management”.
Right, click the USB drive. Select the option to “Change Drive Letter and Paths”.
Click ADD and then click OK.
Now, assign any available drive letter to the USB drive by clicking it.
Right, click the USB to designate it as “Online”.

If this fails, Windows automated “Fix it For Me” service can resolve the issue. If this also doesn’t help, then modifying the system registry will help you tackle the issue. We wouldn’t suggest you go for this option as it may harm your OS.

Conclusion

A USB Drive can become corrupt or unresponsive by any way of Logical or Physical issues. However, you can always securely use a professional USB data recovery tool like Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows to recover files after your USB Drive becomes Corrupt or Unresponsive.

In case of any query, do let us know in the comment section below!

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About The Author

Oliver Powell

Oliver Powell is a Data Recovery Expert at Stellar®. He is a passionate technology blogger & content creator, He explores new applications and has deep understanding of data recovery. He has experience in Windows & Mac data recovery domain.

246 comments

Donald Barry says:

February 5, 2016 at 2:24 pm

Hi. I tried the Windows Data Recovery tool on my USB drive that is no longer recognized. When I click on Advanced Recovery, I get the message “Not a valid volume, or critical data structure of volume badly corrupt.” Is it still possible to recover the files on this 32GB USB thumb drive?

Reply
Olive says:

January 18, 2016 at 6:55 am

Hi, the article is nice but I haven’t got answer of my problem. I have an external hard drive which is not recognized by machine. I tried to insert that drive into my laptop to check it in device manager but still it is not appearing. I don’t understand what to do now?

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  January 18, 2016 at 11:08 am
  
  Hi Olive,
  
  I would suggest you to read this article
  
  I am sure, you will get answer of your query.
  
  Good Luck!!
  
  Reply
Emily says:

January 12, 2016 at 4:20 pm

Nothing here worked for me except I cannot imagine sending the drive out for professional repair. I am hoping to rebuild the files on the drive the hard way, from scratch.

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  January 13, 2016 at 8:05 am
  
  Hi Emily,
  
  We will be happy to help you in this regard. Please share the complete information.
  
  Is your drive physically damaged?
  What are the causes?
  
  Thanks
  
  Reply
  1. Jean Ventilacion says:
    
    October 27, 2017 at 8:55 am
    
    Hi my USBI was corrupt and I can’t find any of my files. my USB is not damaged as I used it a while ago. please help me to recover my files from it contains my school paper works.
    
    Thanks
  2. Jyoti Prakash says:
    
    October 31, 2017 at 9:10 am
    
    Hello Jean,
    
    Sorry to hear about your USB drive.
    
    As you wish to recover the files so we recommend you to try the demo version of Stellar Windows Data Recovery – Professional from the below-mentioned link:
    
    If the desired files are available in the preview section of the software, then you need to purchase the software to save the file.
    
    Download Link
    
    After installing the software, please follow the below-mentioned steps to create an image of the drive as your drive may contain bad sectors:
    
    1. Run Stellar Windows Data Recovery software.
    2. From Select What to Recover screen, select the type of data i.e. Everything, Documents, Folders & Emails or Multimedia Files, you want to recover. Click on Next.
    3. On Select Location screen, select Recover from Disk Images from Other Locations and click on Scan button.
    4. Now select Create Image option and click Next.
    5. From Create Image screen, select the drive or partition for which you wish to create an image.
    6. To create an image of the entire drive or partition click on Start Imaging.
    7. In ‘Create Media Image to Save’ dialog box, locate the destination where image file should be saved. In the File Name text box, type name. Click on Save.
    8. Click on Scan to start the recovery process.
    
    Good Luck
Elan Greek says:

December 21, 2015 at 6:19 am

Hi Andy, I have used mentioned data recovery software. You should give it a shot, may be it will solve your problem. Software will allows data recovery up-to 1 GB for free. If you want to restore unlimited data then you have to purchase its license key. Good Luck!!

Reply
Andy Baron says:

December 21, 2015 at 6:17 am

Hi, can anyone help me to get my shift + deleted files back using any freeware secure recovery program. The software which I have tried is able to recover my deleted files, but when I tried to save them prompted me to buy the tool. I want my costly files back but don’t want to spend much amount.

Reply
Toby says:

December 17, 2015 at 6:42 am

Hi, my USB flash drive is not detected by system; I have tried the above mentioned steps to make it detectable but still unable to view it. That undetectable drive holds my official documents and I want to restore them. The size of data is over 800 MB, do the above mentioned software can recover my data at free?

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  December 18, 2015 at 3:32 am
  
  Hi Toby,
  
  Yes you can recover your 800 MB data without paying single amount. Stellar Partition Recovery software is fully capable to search and scan undetectable drives as well as allows user to recover over 1 GB data at free of cost.
  
  Good Luck!!
  
  Reply
  1. Susan Lopez says:
    
    November 21, 2016 at 2:00 pm
    
    I could not find the “free” version and $99 is a bit steep for one lost file.
  2. Jyoti Prakash says:
    
    November 23, 2016 at 2:47 am
    
    Hi Susan,
    
    Sorry for the inconvenience. You’ll get a free data recovery software at here, and you can recover your data about 1GB for free with the help of this software.
Shirley Moseley says:

December 10, 2015 at 4:28 am

Dear Publisher,

My friend brought me a NTFS hard drive which he needs to get recovered. However, I work on Mac and don’t have a Windows machine with me or nearby. How is it possible to recover the files from the Windows hard drive on Mac?”

Reply
1. Vishal says:
  
  December 10, 2015 at 5:16 am
  
  Hi Shirley,
  What you can do is, connect the NTFS hard drive on Mac and free download Stellar Mac data recovery V7.0. This software mounts, scan and previews all recoverable files from NTFS formatted media. Once the scan is done you can get instant preview of files which will help you decide registering the software. Once registered you will receive the activation code and software will save all recovered files to another destination.
  Hope this helps. Thanks.
  
  Reply
John Peabody says:

December 9, 2015 at 1:00 pm

I have Seagate file recovery which normally works. I thought if seagate dont work yours wont however I tried it and and it came up with corrupt drive so I removed it from my computer. The drive is a 32 gb transcend usb stick, always used safe remove. no visible signs of damage. the scandisk repair does not work. properties, populate comes up with “0”

Reply
jeremy says:

November 10, 2015 at 6:08 pm

Hey, My 3TB HDD got corrupted when we had a power failure in my area. When i plug in the HDD, Windows tells me it needs to be formatted. The software shows the file system as “RAW” so i want to ask, should i format the drive and then run the recovery software(and then which settings do i chose to recover?) or shall i attempt to recover before formatting? and once again, which settings should i choose?

Reply
El says:

October 19, 2015 at 6:29 pm

I have an Imation IronKey D80 and all of my data was stored on the encrypted portion of the drive, in Secure Volume F. Now when I unlock my flahsdrive it says “needs to be reformatted” and when I chkdsk it says the data is RAW. Would the steps above still work for my situation with this encrypted flash drive? Thank you.

Reply
1. Abhay says:
  
  October 20, 2015 at 10:24 am
  
  Hey EL,
  
  Yes, software would able to retrieve files from RAW (lost file system) hard drives. Download and install this software and under ‘Drive Recovery’ option, you’d be able to see your problem drive listed. Choose subsequent recovery options like advanced recovery which scans and recover all your valuable files.
  
  Feel free to revert if there is anything else you’d need helping hand with.
  
  Good luck!!
  
  Reply