How to revive a "dead" flash drive?

Stijloor

Leader
Super Moderator
Friends,

I have a Cruzer (512 MB) flash drive that my computer does not recognize anymore. I tried it on my Windows XP machine. Now I have my Windows 7 machine with me. Any suggestions to bring this drive to live without causing any damage to my (new) laptop?

Thanks!

Stijloor.
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
I think you'll find that once one dies it's gone to Flash Drive Heaven.

I have had a couple die and I remember finding a couple of utilities to resurrect and reformat dead flash drives, but the 2 I tried didn't work. They went into the trash. I never keep anything of importance on a flash drive so they're not a big issue to me.

But - You never know. Someone here may have an answer. Last time I looked around was 6 months or more ago.
 

Jim Wynne

Leader
Admin
Friends,

I have a Cruzer (512 MB) flash drive that my computer does not recognize anymore. I tried it on my Windows XP machine. Now I have my Windows 7 machine with me. Any suggestions to bring this drive to live without causing any damage to my (new) laptop?

Thanks!

Stijloor.

You don't say if you've tried it on the Win7 machine (presumably a laptop) or not. You won't do any harm to anything by plugging it in to see what happens. If your computer seems to not recognize it, look at Disk Manager. Look here to see how to access and use Disk Management in Win7.

If the flash drive doesn't show up there, there's a good chance it's dead, and if it's dead you're mostly likely SOL with regard to the data stored on it. Before giving up hope, I'd try it on a third computer. If you're in a hotel there might be a business center with computers where you can try it. with it.
 
S

samsung

Friends,

I have a Cruzer (512 MB) flash drive that my computer does not recognize anymore. I tried it on my Windows XP machine. Now I have my Windows 7 machine with me. Any suggestions to bring this drive to live without causing any damage to my (new) laptop?

Thanks!

Stijloor.

You may refer the linked page "How to Repair a USB Flash Drive". It once worked for me on Windows XP (SP2) but it didn't work with my friend's Flash Drive, so we assumed there was a hardware issue. In my flash drive, I noticed that when I inserted my 'impaired' device, yellow light blinked for a moment and then disappeared which confirmed that the hardware was undamaged.

The only thing that you need to try this method is your Operating System's CD (WIn XP or Windows 7 as the case may be). The data stored on the device cannot be recovered.

Good Luck.
 

Jim Wynne

Leader
Admin
You may refer the linked page "How to Repair a USB Flash Drive". It once worked for me on Windows XP (SP2) but it didn't work with my friend's Flash Drive, so we assumed there was a hardware issue. In my flash drive, I noticed that when I inserted my 'impaired' device, yellow light blinked for a moment and then disappeared which confirmed that the hardware was undamaged.

The only thing that you need to try this method is your Operating System's CD (WIn XP or Windows 7 as the case may be). The data stored on the device cannot be recovered.

Good Luck.

If the drive isn't recognized, you won't be able to reformat it. Windows can't reformat a drive it can't "see." Also, most computers these days don't come with an OS CD/DVD. They come with a "restore" CD that works with a hidden partition on the system drive. The only option available is to completely restore the HD to its original configuration.
 

Stijloor

Leader
Super Moderator
Friends,

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Cruzer is dead. :( Served me well for a few years. R.I.P.

Stijloor.
 

Jim Wynne

Leader
Admin
Bob,

Anything more robust that you can recommend?

Stijloor.

I have a Toshiba that I've used for a few years, but I don't store anything on itthat I can't afford to lose. I use the flash drive for portable apps. If you need to carry data files with you (documents, Powerpoint files, etc.) it's better just to store them on the Laptop hard drive, or if they're not too huge, you can e-mail the files to yourself (Gmail is good for this) and have access to them anywhere you can access the Internet.
 
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