Step-by-step instructions for USB flash drive recovery in which I will try to answer the question in an accessible language How to recover a flash drive independently and without much effort.

Sometimes you help a person, and then he will tell everyone that you are so good and there are already crowds of people thirsty for help. This is roughly what happened when I restored several flash drives colleagues.

Now the people bear not only their own flash drives, but also flash drives your friends, acquaintances and relatives. Well, at least someone else would bring a bottle of beer or a cookie.

It’s not difficult for me to help, but when I suggest you learn how to do all this yourself, you refuse. Next time I’ll just sew them off. If you don't want to study, pass by.

I’ll finish with the lyrics here and move directly to the topic of the post..

If your flash drive stopped be determined like a disk, doesn't want to formatted, does not allow you to write down information or something else happened to it, BUT it has no mechanical damage, then you know that all is not lost. Most likely a glitch controller and you will have to tinker with it a little. This procedure takes approximately 5 minutes.

I’ll say right away that there is no universal programs For recovery all varieties flash drives. You will need to find exactly the one that can work with your controller. flash drives.

First we need to define VID And PID non-working flash drives.

Determine VID and PID for flash drive recovery

Stick it in flash drive into your computer and run device Manager. Start – Execute - mmc devmgmt.msc.

Then go to the section Universal Serial Bus Controllers.

We find ours in the list flash drive. Usually, everything flash drives have a name USB storage device.

Press the right button on the device and open Properties.

Go to the tab Intelligence.

Select the item from the drop-down list Instance code devices or Equipment IDs.

In this window we see PID And VID.

Finding a flash drive recovery program

We go to the website FlashBoot.ru and enter the received VID And PID.

Click on the button Search.

In the results we look for your manufacturer and model of the flash drive. I have Kingston DataTraveler 2.0.

The right column will contain the name of the program we need or a link to it.

All. Now search Google for the program by name or download it from the link provided. Launch and follow the instructions. Usually, in such programs for recovery There’s only one button, so you shouldn’t have any questions.

That's all!

If you have any questions, ask in the comments.

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Sometimes users encounter various problems when using microSD and USB drives. The most common failure is the inability to read data from them.

However, there are applications that allow you to return devices to working condition.

Repair software from manufacturers

Below are the official utilities for the most commonly found products.

Transcend

JetFlash Online Recovery is the official Transcend application designed to recover flash drives of this brand. It is very easy to use. To get started, connect the drive and open the program. The recovery wizard will launch and prompt you for further steps.

The user is offered 2 options for repairing a flash drive: with or without complete deletion of data. If you were unable to restore the drive while saving the data, you can resort to the option of erasing files.

The program is distributed free of charge, it is available in the “Support and Downloads” tab of the manufacturer’s official website.

Silicon Power

Silicon Power flash drive recovery application – USB Flash Drive Recovery– can be downloaded on the company’s website in the “Support” section.

Adata

This manufacturer also offers a program in Russian for restoring flash drives of its model range. The application is called USB Flash Drive Online Recovery.

If you have problems reading data on a flash drive or messages about problems appear, you can use this utility to resolve errors. You can download the program in the “Useful Software” section of the “Support” tab on the manufacturer’s website.

Kingston

Kingston has released a special application designed to repair USB flash drives Data Traveler HyperX 3.0. It allows you to format a USB drive and, theoretically, return it to its original functionality. To download this program, you can also go to the company's website.

Universal recovery utilities

D-Soft Flash Doctor Can be used for flash drives from various manufacturers. User reviews indicate that it can help troubleshoot problems.

To repair a flash drive, the program uses low-level formatting. In addition, you can use it to create an image of a USB disk in order to work not with the flash drive itself, but with the image (this helps prevent further problems).

The option will be useful if the user needs data recorded on a flash drive.

Chip Genius allows you to find information about the memory controller used in the flash drive, as well as VID and PID. Once you have this information, you should go to the iFlash website and enter the VID and PID in the appropriate fields. After that, in the search results you need to find flash drive models with a controller similar to yours and see what recovery programs are used for them (they are listed in the (Utils) column). You can find these applications on the Internet and try to solve the problem with their help.

Comments

Manufacturers of USB drives place software on official websites for the convenience of users. Therefore, Silicon Power recommends flash drive recovery using the UFD Recover Tool software.

To do this, you need to go to the official website, register, download the program directly in the registration window. In addition, on the same site there is software from the official partner of the Piriform company called Recuva File Recovery. It restores files deleted from the drive.

When you insert some USB storage devices into a slot, the computer incorrectly detects the amount of memory. There are known cases when the case was marked 32 GB, and when disassembled the chip turned out to be 1 GB in size.

Recovery Features

The most common case in which the Silicon Power flash drive recovery program is in demand is the message in the window: “Error, write protection” / “The drive is write protected.” A program to determine the controller being used will help you choose the optimal utility for restoring a Silicon Power 16 Gb flash drive. At the same time, it is very important to know the type of microcircuit, since the software edition depends on it.

The ChipGenium program copes better than others with the task of recognizing a player or flash drive. It successfully interrogates most models, and for rare exceptions it takes data from the VId\PID database, displaying information about them with a high degree of probability.

Old versions of ChipGenium (3.0, 3.1) are useless for our chosen task, since they cannot poll devices. Operating system builds of the ChipXP, Zver, Windows PE editions will also not allow you to display the correct information. ASMedia controllers 3.0 are not designed for this utility.

The domestic software manufacturer is not lagging behind its Western competitors. ANTSpec Software produces Flash Drive Information Extractor software. The advantage of the utility is its compatibility with USB 3.0 ports from AS Media. Decrypted information is released only in program versions older than 7.0. I recommend this software for SMI, Phison, Innostor, Alcor controllers.

The last program needed to select the correct utility to recover a Silicon Power 8 Gb flash drive is ChipEasy. The utility polls the latest generation 3.0 connectors with errors, therefore, it is better to use the traditional 2.0 port. The operating principle differs from the previous two, however, the program confidently takes third place in the ranking.

Drive firmware

In difficult cases, when the programs discussed above are not able to restore a Silicon Power 4 Gb flash drive, I recommend flashing the device with one of the utilities and programs. To do this you will need to find out the VID&PID and follow the instructions:

• The flash drive is pulled out of the connector
• after launching the utility, the installation of drivers is confirmed, which should be removed automatically after flashing the firmware and closing the program
• To do this, you need to manipulate the menu: Driver > Uninstall drivers
• The flash drive is inserted into the PC, the OS offers to install a driver on it
• click “Automatic”, after installation click Enum
• Now the computer detects the device, you can click Start to flash the firmware
• OK status means firmware without errors, otherwise you can decipher the problem using the error code (Menu Help > Error Code List)

At the penultimate stage, a problem is possible - the computer does not detect the device. In this case, go to: C:\Program Files\Program nameDriver\InfUpdate.exe, launch it by double-clicking, register the VOD&PID of the flash drive in it. Users who do not know this parameter can use ChipGenium. After flashing the firmware, the program should be uninstalled, otherwise the drivers will not be removed, and the OS simply will not see the flashed flash drive. At the last stage, in order to restore the Silicon Power b32 Gb flash drive, the drive is formatted using Windows.

Thus, you should first obtain accurate information about the controller and the type of chip. Then try to revive the media using the utility from the official website, and, if unsuccessful, use the firmware option followed by formatting using your OS.

Today we have another “monotest” on our agenda - in the sense that we will be considering three flash drives from one manufacturer, namely Silicon Power. They belong to different classes, but all are equipped with the long-tired USB 2.0 interface. Alas, having announced new developments designed for the faster and more promising USB 3.0 and showing them at various exhibitions, manufacturers are in no particular hurry to begin real mass deliveries of such devices, due to the infrastructure not being fully ready. Thus, those who like to buy the “very best” will have to wait a little longer. The well-known traditional USB flash drives continue to rule the market, although they differ significantly from each other in consumer characteristics. Except, perhaps, for functionality.

Software

Previously, Silicon Power supplied the vast majority of drives exclusively “naked,” i.e., without any additional software. Now this “injustice” has been corrected - the owner of any flash drive or VHD with this brand can download from the website the SP Widget utility, which in functionality is very similar to CoSoSys CarryItEasy+, also offered by many flash drive manufacturers under license (for example, a special version for Transcend is called JetFlash Elite) . However, despite this similarity, the utility gives the impression of an original product, and it looks completely different.

The main window of the program, launched directly from a flash drive and, when not needed, peacefully hanging in the system area of ​​the taskbar, has a purely advertising value. Note that in the current version the figure shows the Touch 850 flash drive, which we will get to know in detail below :) To access all functions of the program, there are buttons in the right column.

The first of them is designed to synchronize the “My Documents” folder on your computer with a similar one on a flash drive. It is displayed on the screen, and then you just need to select the necessary files or subdirectories. And perform one of three actions - copy the selected one to the drive, perform the reverse process, or synchronize the computer with a flash drive.

If you need to work with directories located somewhere else, similar operations can be done with them using the second button. True, there is already one limitation here - the selected folder will be processed as a whole, i.e. it is no longer possible to select only part of the contents and ignore part.

But there can be many such “alternative” folders, and for each of them its default action can be configured (copy direction or synchronization), and you can perform the necessary operations on the entire area of ​​the function definition with one click.

The disadvantage of the operations described above is that when they are performed, the files are in no way protected from unauthorized access, and the flash drive can be lost or stolen. If you are not satisfied that the “finder” will be able to read your documents, it makes sense not just to copy them, but to encrypt them on the fly, which is what the third button of the panel does.

The fourth one performs actions similar to working with files with Internet Explorer “Favorites”...

...and the fifth allows you to perform a similar operation with Outlook or Outlook Express mail databases. Unfortunately, other browsers and email programs are not currently supported by the utility.

The sixth button allows you to block access to the computer. There are three unlocking options, the most interesting of which is using a flash drive as a hardware key.

The seventh button just downloads the trial version of Norton Internet Security 2009, and the ninth button sends the user to read the news on the Silicon Power website, so we won’t deal with them in detail. Of interest is button number eight, which displays a page with detailed technical information about the drive and what the program has produced for us - for all special folders their capacity is displayed (which is quite useful, since they are hidden, so a user of “ordinary” qualifications will be able to see them in Explorer will not reach) and the date of the last synchronization. By the way, how much free space is left on the device is clearly visible on any of the SP Widget pages.

To search for program updates, as well as download documentation, use the tenth button in the panel.

The eleventh one allows you to select the interface language. Alas, the choice is still very limited - English and three dialects of Chinese. This can be considered a fairly noticeable disadvantage compared to the Russified CarryItEasy+, JetFlash Elite and others like that. Otherwise, the program's capabilities are not bad - just what many people need. Therefore, the fact of its appearance can be assessed in an exclusively positive way.

Silicon Power LuxMini 920

We've tested this drive before, but last year its maximum capacity was only 32GB. But the speed of operation turned out to be very impressive: in fact, that modification remains the best of those using MLC flash and competes with more expensive SLC lines. More precisely, “could have remained” and “could have competed,” because some time after the publication of the review, the company radically redesigned the device: drives in the same case with a completely different controller began to appear on the market. Noticeably slower (which is a minus), but also less power-hungry (which is not a drawback at all - the old models got too hot during active use, so sometimes they failed due to overheating). We were extremely interested - this modification is typical only for models with a capacity of up to 32 GB inclusive, and in the newer one with 64 GB, the company has retained the same “extreme” filling, or the entire line has changed irrevocably. That's why we decided to test the older modification.

By the way, another interesting detail is connected with it. Usually, having mastered the production of drives larger than 32 GB (the official maximum for the standard formatting program of Windows XP and newer versions when using FAT32), manufacturing companies offer users a special utility in order to still continue to use the old one (but most compatible with all operating systems and household appliances) file system. Silicon Power approached the issue differently - the 64 GB LuxMini 920 comes from the factory formatted for NTFS. This FS has its advantages, but also a number of disadvantages (especially when used on flash drives), so the question arose - what is more optimal. Moreover, it can be assumed that when factory formatting the company takes into account the features of NTFS (in particular, many models of flash drives require special alignment of service areas, selection of the cluster size, etc.), so that all parameters will be selected optimally. And, of course, we carried out tests in the standard form for our methodology - using FAT32 (for formatting we used a small console program fat32format, capable of working with partitions up to 2 TB inclusive).

Silicon Power Touch 830

Unlike drives from the LuxMini or Ultima families, representatives of the Touch line of flash drives cannot boast of high technical characteristics or excessive functionality (however, the SP Widget program described above also works with them, so now the difference in the latter parameter has been noticeably reduced). Their main purpose is to please those buyers who primarily require the original appearance of the device (again, not as original as Unique, of course). And both products that came into our hands today are best suited for those who need a compact drive. This is especially true for the 830 model, which is only slightly larger than flash drives: its dimensions are only 35x12.3x3.5 mm and weighs only 4 grams. How was this achieved? The design is almost equivalent to the thinnest devices, but most of the flash drive (with the exception of the contact group area) is placed in a metal case. A very reasonable approach: firstly, it is very compact, secondly, there are no moving parts, thirdly, the metal plate makes the device a little more reliable than sticks, and you won’t be able to plug it into the port upside down, well and, finally, the appearance is somehow “richer” than that of a plastic imitation of a piece of chewing gum. But there are also disadvantages traditional for the little ones - only one flash memory chip fits into such a case, which so far limits the maximum capacity to 16 GB (modifications of 2, 4 and 8 GB are also available; we tested the second of them), and high speed does not allow you to achieve work. But it looks nice :)

Silicon Power Touch 850

If you need something even more attractive in appearance or simply more capacious, then you can pay attention to the next model in the line. The 850 has a more traditional design with a retractable connector, but is also compact: 31.6 x 16.4 x 6 mm and weighs 6.1 grams. The increase in size made it possible to fit up to 32 GB into the older modification; otherwise, the capacity range is the same as that of the 830 (we tested an 8 GB flash drive). And the designers used the separate case as it should: it remained metal, but a “crystal-shaped” overlay was placed on one of the sides. We immediately had associations with the HTC Touch Diamond communicator, where a similar element of decoration on the back wall was criticized more than once - the protruding corners were quickly erased, so that the appearance became unpresentable. It’s difficult to say for now whether this problem will be specific to the flash drive. Perhaps not - it itself is smaller and lighter, so it is unlikely to rub much against adjacent surfaces (besides, one side of the case is not at all the same as the back side of the mobile phone case, on which it usually lies ). The final answer to the question will appear only after the drive goes on mass sale and a large number of buyers (in this case, rather, female customers) manage to use it, but for now we can state the fact that in both color versions (and steel gray , and yellowish) it looks very impressive. It even seems that the designers were somewhat mistaken with the included accessories: the short metal braided cord looks very good and in the spirit of the device itself, but it was worth focusing on the fact that the flash drive would be worn as a pendant or similar decoration (such as the Pretec i- Disk Bella II... Well, how it works when used for its intended purpose will be shown by tests, to which we move on.

Real Capacity

Unlike hard drives, various flash drives, which formally have the same volume, in practice differ in the amount of “disk” space available to the user, so for all tested devices we have given this important parameter (since it is for this that money is paid) and will continue to do so give further :) In the simplest and most understandable form - how many bytes are available for use on a flash drive freshly formatted for FAT32.

Min 4 GB	Silicon Power Touch 830 4 GB	Max 4 GB
3 968 393 216	3 993 509 888	4 102 348 800

Min 8 GB	Silicon Power Touch 850 8 GB	Max 8 GB
7 936 843 776	7 991 263 232	8 271 732 736

Min 64 GB		Max 64 GB
64 126 386 176	64 341 606 400	64 572 227 584

Testing methodology

Described in detail in a separate article. There you can get acquainted with the configuration of the test bench and the software used.

Competitors

Recently, we have begun to move away from the practice of comparing drives only with those tested in the previous material - they are too different. Therefore, it was decided to take as reference points two fast models from those already tested using the current method - Silicon Power LuxMini 920 with a capacity of 32 GB (obviously, when studying its replacement, one cannot do without this device) and Corsair Flash Voyager GTR with the same 32 GB . And the colors of the “mass series” today will be protected by the Transcend JetFlash 500 and JetFlash V95C (both 4 GB) - the latter is generally a direct competitor to the Touch line from Silicon Power, the first is interesting for its slowness (however, traditional for many of the current low-capacity mass models) , so would be perfect for a “minimum level” role.

Access time

Traditionally, we leave the access time for read operations without comment and move on to writing. As you can see, today’s test subjects are unable to please us particularly. Perhaps the LuxMini 920 has a shorter access time compared to the previous modification of the line, but that’s all. And the Touch 830 went off scale in a second, which is somehow even... indecent or something.

Linear operations

Despite the fact that IOMeter tries to be independent of the file system used, there is a difference when working in large blocks, and not in favor of FAT32. When working with it, the LuxMini 920 is only equivalent to the Corsair Flash Voyager GTR, but when using the factory format, it does not lag behind its earlier model. Well, the low results of the Touch 830 in this (and in others too) test are quite understandable - the device clearly uses only one flash memory chip, and even that one is quite slow.

When recording data, the picture is almost the same, but here the LuxMini 920 64 GB with any file system does not claim leadership. But it works quickly, which cannot be said about representatives of the Touch line. However, the 850 is holding up at a quite decent level, but our 830 copy may have been crippled by its low capacity (although, given its compactness and limited volume, there is reason to assume that all models in this line use only one flash memory chip and , accordingly, the controller operates in single-channel mode, so the large capacity of older modifications will not help in any way).

Working with video

When writing to a large continuous file, and even in large blocks, as you can see, modern high-speed drives can significantly outperform the old modification of the LuxMini 920. The results of a device formatted for NTFS are especially indicative - due to more efficient caching, the flash drive has become one and a half times faster than itself :) The only good thing we can say about the other two models is that they cope with this task.

Working with applications

The biggest disappointment is the results of the LuxMini 920 on the new controller in the ContentCreation test: if the previous modification on this template, simulating real work with a large number of files, was at the level of SLC flash drives, then the new one fell to the performance of high-speed MLC models. Well, the representatives of the Touch family showed quite predictable results.

Copying files

The speed of copying files from the drive did not show any unexpected surprises - this operation can now be fast. Always, with the exception of those cases when the controller operates in single-channel mode, which, apparently, is true for, for example, the 4 GB Touch 830 (and other modern mass-produced flash drives of such capacity; and many - even larger). The picture is more interesting during the reverse operation, and not even with the results of different drives (they could well be expected), but with the comparative position of FAT32 and NTFS on the LuxMini 920. Initially, we assumed that the greatest increase would be obtained when copying a large number of small files, but the reality turned out to be the opposite :) The growth on large files is extremely pleasant - after all, NTFS is usually used to support them. But a sharp decrease in speed at low speeds is the opposite. But this, let us remind you, is “factory” formatting, in which, in theory, the manufacturer should have taken into account all the nuances of alignment and more.

Overall GPA

Silicon Power LuxMini 920 64 GB	Silicon Power Touch 830 4 GB	Silicon Power Touch 850 8 GB
235	63	165

Energy consumption

This is a completely reasonable justification for changing the controller (different from the price) - the consumption of the old LuxMini 920 was, nevertheless, too high, but the new one was “driven” into quite reasonable limits. With the exception of random write operations, but here everything is quite explainable by the large number of chips in the 64 GB models and the fact that with such a test load you have to write to all of them.

Prices

The table shows the average retail price of tested drives in Moscow, current at the time you read this article:

Silicon Power LuxMini 920 64 GB	Silicon Power Touch 830 4 GB	Silicon Power Touch 850 8 GB
N/A(0)	$4()	$8()

Total

In general, we haven’t discovered anything fundamentally new today. As expected, the dominant one on the USB flash drive market has long been a combination of MLC chips and the USB 2.0 interface, which (in various forms) we have been regularly encountering for several years now. Moreover, the change of controller in the LuxMini 920 series eliminated this atypical peak, which, along with the cessation of production of SLC models by almost all manufacturers, is in no way capable of pleasing those who are looking for a really fast drive that can compete with external hard drives in performance, without being inferior to them in compactness. In the segment of fashion models, no records have been observed before, so the Touch results did not bring anything new. Just another confirmation that progress can go backwards - since a flash drive with a USB 2.0 interface cannot be too fast, manufacturers prefer to use the fastest memory chips in other devices: for example, SSDs. In the near future we will try to find out whether a “second wind” will open after the transition to USB 3.0 at least for top models of flash drives, but for now we have what we have.

Silicon Power was created by a group of like-minded people in 2003 in Taiwan. They were united by the goal of creating reliable and almost eternal storage media, so they became one of the initiators of a lifetime warranty on flash drives and memory cards. Silicon Power is one of the leading companies in the production of memory cards, card readers, DRAM modules, disks, USB adapters, USB flash drives.

The company has many representative offices in Japan, Russia, the Netherlands, the USA, India and China. The company's products are in great demand around the world. I would like to emphasize that the founders were not just a group of enthusiasts, they were specialists in international business, global marketing and engineering and technical flash data storage. Thus, any, even the smallest flash drive produced by this company, becomes part of the global program for data protection and storage.

Holding their products in your hands, you can say with confidence that this is one of the most reliable equipment. Many awards received over the course of a decade indicate the recognition of millions of users, the high quality and reliability of the company’s products. This is also evidenced by the growing number of branches around the world.

But USB flash drives are not protected from intentional and accidental damage, which leads to the failure of the flash drive and loss of information. Especially for such situations, Silicon Power has developed a number of programs corresponding to the model range that restore the functionality of the flash drive.

You can perform qualified data recovery yourself, spending no more than an hour on it. We have specially prepared for you a number of programs to restore normal operation of flash drives:

Several production utilities for repairing and restoring flash drives on Silicon Motion controllers of different versions. Most Silicon Power flash drives work on controllers of this brand. All programs are of the same type, but for different versions of the controller, so you will have to choose the right one. The instructions are simple:

1. Run the program
2. Connect the drive
3. In the program, press Scan USB or F5, the device will be detected on one of the ports
4. Click the Debug button and enter “320” when prompted for a password.
5. Press the Start button (Space key)

After this, check the drive for functionality and elimination of errors. The program may not fix the problem on the first try, so try several times. Also, in a number of cases, when the flash drive is incorrectly or not detected at all, you need to short-circuit legs 29 and 30 of the memory chip, but for this you will have to disassemble the case. And only when the flash drive is detected in the system, run the recovery utility. A needle, thin knife, tweezers, etc. are suitable for closing.

So you can bring a Silicon Power flash drive back to life using software and without spending money on specialists or buying a new drive.