We love our pen drives right?
In this world of mobile and internet pen drives and flash drives are one of the most popular medium of storing our useful data,music,documents etc..
Many of us also prefer to use pen drives or flash drives as a great medium of transferring large files to others.
Some also use their pen drives to lock their PCs also.
Though cloud storage is also an option but again it requires internet connectivity. But in case of flash drives or pen drives you can simply assured that your data is with you all the time.
But now the tricky part.
One fine morning you insert your pen drive into your laptop and all of a sudden you cannot access your pen drive.
Source:
Sorry! your pen drive has crashed and you need to Recover your data!
Believe me 8 out of 10 people feel very nervous in this case.
Because the data is more valuable than anything else!
So it is quite understandable.
But don’t panic.
If you are in this situation read on you have come to the right place.I will discuss how to Recover USB Drive in this quick post.
In some easy way you can possibly recover your data. Just follow these steps below:
#Don’t Panic.It is the most important step.
To recover your pen drive data you first have to understand what issues actually cause this problem.
The reasons may varies like below:
- Do you have broken stems or connectors?
- Do you have broken circuits or dead drives?
- Do you have any read/write errors?
The above are the most common physical failures for your USB drive failure.
How you know your flash drive is suffering from physical errors?
Normally when your flash drive has such problems you will get these error messages like below:
“Please Insert Disk into Removable Disk” or “USB Device Not Recognized or Malfunctioned“, “you need to format the disk before using it”
Now first of all do this quick trick:
If you are using any USB hub to connect your data first of all remove that. Instead connect your USB drive directly with your main USB connector.
Often times the USB hub has some internal problem and not quite able to deliver the power supply required to run the USB drive.
So note this.
If you have second PC you can also check it with it.Sometimes it is the fault of your PC not your pen drive.
So cross check once at least!
If the above does not solve your problem then you may have problem with NAND memory chips or your internal circuit has some issues.
I strongly recommend if you are not confident enough please do not do anything silly.
Just go for an experienced technician to help you out.
You may have to spend a little money but in this way you should always feel assured that you have a very good chance to recover corrupted or deleted files from flash drive/USB.
Next there are some other logical reasons which are mentioned below:
- Do you have bad sectors?
- Formatting or Filesystem corruption?
- Malware attack?
If the above are your problems you can perform some tasks yourself to recover your data.
What is bad sector?
A Bad Sector is a sector on a PC disk drive or flash drive which is normally either inaccessible or unwriteable due to permanent damage.
There are many tools like CHKDSK or SCANDISK in windows by which you can check if your device has that problem.
Read Also:How to Speed UP Windows 10:The Complete Guide
How to fix bad sector?
There is basically two options fixing bad sectors in removable drives.
Repairing the bad sector without formatting.
Recover the data and then do a hard format.
Repairing the bad sector without formatting:
Repairing the bad sector without formatting is the easiest way and should be the first approach for everyone.
For this to do you need a bad sector repair software which can detect and repaid the bad sectors automatically for you.
Now usually the time required for it varies depending upon the size of the flash drive.
You can choose a range of free bad sector repair software here.
Recover the data and then do a hard format:
The second option is the safest but requires a more attention than the first ones.
You need a very good pen drive recovery software.
To do this otherwise you may end up loosing all your valuable data. so be prepared.
So run the data recovery software first then you can format the drive in your favorite file system.
Pro tip:
According to howtogeek.com FAT32 is the most preferable file system you should choose among all.
FAT32 also supports the major devices .
So next time when you format your data in pen drive of flash drive choose FAT32 for its greater portability.
How to recover and fix bad sector in windows 7:
If you are using Windows 7 then follow steps below to repair the USB Flash Drive:
- Insert the USB drive into the USB port of your PC
- Navigate to My Computer>Removable Disk Icon.
- Right click the Removable Disk Icon and open its Properties section.
- Click on the Tools tab.
- Click “Rebuild/Check for errors” button
- Let the scan process get finished. After that Close the scan window pop up once it’s completed.
- Lastly Right-click the icon of the USB flash drive and “Eject”. Then remove the drive from the USB port.
The above process should fix the issue.
Malware attack detection and fix:
Now what is your PC has been infected with Malware?
Malware is a piece of code intended to harm your system by either manipulating its core functionality and making your PC/Device vulnerable to security risks.
How do you remove malware?
Now put it simply. Malware exists in numerous forms and can infect anytime so be careful when going online or handling external files etc.
To resist malwares the following steps should be taken:
- Never go to any third party unauthorized website to download any pirated software
- Never open any suspicious email attachment which you think is harmful.
- Update your system security patches atleast once a month.
- When doing any online transaction like entering credit cards numbers, billing details always double check the website if it is really the original one.
- Alwsys use a good antimalware program like Norton
Or if you are looking for free options Avast Free Antivirus can be a good option.
After installing Avast just run a Quick scan and it will detect and fix if any such malicious malwares are there.
One quick point here after you install such antivirus software never miss to update its virus definition engines and updated they releases.
It is a must.
Now after this you have also the option to scan your pen drive or removable device with it and there is as very good chance to remove any malwares in your pen drive.
Additional tip:
I have tried it once and want to share this point with you if your pen drive or USB drive is not detected by Windows.
Use Linux.
Linus has similar different advantages over Windows.
I have written different advantages of using Linux in my earlier posts.If you have not checked it earlier you can check it right here:These are Top 6 Reasons to Use Linux Right Now!
You can use Live bootable CDS/DVDs like Knoppix or Ubuntu to boot your PC without affecting Windows Os then insert your pen drive or removable media and mount it.
In some cases if you can mount it then you can copy your files from pen drive or removable media and then transfer it to other removable drive using the same process,
In this way you can get your files back.
But it works only for some cases!
Try it once.
Hope the above points can help you to recover your files from your removable drives.
If everything fails the please get help of a skilled technician or data recovery expert.
Do you have any other points you think I missed?
Please share all your thoughts in the comment box below.
I will be happy to hear you all.
Good day!
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