Fix Damaged USB Drive/SD Card for Free

Quickly Recover Data from a Damaged USB Drive

1. Step 1: Connect the damaged USB drive for scanning. 2. Connect your USB drive to the computer and run the USB recovery software tool. 3. Step 2: Scan the USB drive and preview files by double-clicking on the results. 4. Step 3: Recover USB drive files and save them. 5. See more details...

What to Do When Your USB Flash Drive or SD Card Gets Corrupted?

Are you looking for ways to fix a damaged USB flash drive, SD card, or hard disk on your computer, camera, or phone? Do you feel lost when a storage device suddenly stops working, gets corrupted, or becomes unrecognized by your computer?

Don't worry! If you're dealing with a damaged USB drive, SD card, or flash drive and aren't sure what to do, there are three simple methods you can try that might fix common issues.

TIP 1: Try connecting your device to a computer that's close by.

It's worth a try if you have a spare computer lying around, especially if you're dealing with an unrecognized USB device. This can help rule out any issues with your connections.

Tip 2: Change drive letters and paths

A drive letter conflict might also cause the device to go unrecognized. You can open Disk Management by right-clicking My Computer or This PC and selecting Manage, then Disk Management.

Try assigning it a new drive letter. With its own unique drive letter, the connected drive should now display properly.

TIP 3: Update your device drivers

If the drive is not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management, even though it is connected properly, you can try heading to the Windows Device Manager (This PC/My PC -> Manage -> Device Manager).

Expand the “Universal Serial Bus controllers” section, and right-click each “Universal Serial Bus Hub” to update the driver until the device reappears in your Computer.

Update the driver to fix the corrupted USB drive

Tip 4: Seek Manual USB Repair Services

If you find it difficult to fix a corrupted USB drive, you can seek help from professional USB repair experts. Data recovery services offer one-on-one remote assistance to resolve USB/HDD/SSD issues, recover partitions, wipe data, and more.

Hard Drive Repair and Data Recovery Services

Contact our experts for a free evaluation.

Consult with our Data Recovery Tools experts for personalized manual recovery services. After a free diagnosis, we offer the following:

• Repair HDD, SSD, external hard drives, and USB flash drive errors; recover data from all RAID levels
• Restore lost partitions that cannot be recovered by data recovery software
• Fix disks with bad sectors that are unreadable or inaccessible
• Recover disks transformed into GPT protected partitions
• Erase data, format hard drives, install/uninstall software or drivers, etc.

If the quick solutions above didn't work for you, don't worry. In the following paragraphs, you'll find three repair tools to fix a corrupted flash drive/SD card.

Top 3 USB Flash Drive Repair Tools

When a USB flash drive, thumb drive, or SD card gets corrupted, the computer fails to detect it, and data on it becomes inaccessible. You may find that the USB drive or SD card is unresponsive to any operation. So, how do you fix this problem and repair your USB drive or SD card? Here, you'll find three general USB repair tools and a data recovery wizard tool for complete data retrieval after the USB drive/SD card corruption.

These recommended tools are largely equivalent, so choose the one that best suits your needs.

1st Native Windows Disk Checking Utility

Yes, USB flash drives can have logical errors, but you can easily fix them by repairing the file structure. Windows has a great tool to do the checking and fixing for you.

Step 1: Make sure the problematic USB drive is connected to your computer. Open Windows File Explorer, right-click on the removable disk, and select “Properties.”

Step 2: Click the "Tools" tab and then click the "Check" button.

Step 3: Check both boxes for [1] “Automatically fix file system errors” and [2] “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.”

Click “Start”, and then wait for the scan to finish. When it's done, close the window.

2nd Place: Windows Command Prompt – CHKDSK

The CHKDSK command is an effective way to fix, repair, or get a damaged, corrupted, or non-working USB flash drive, pen drive, SD card, or hard disk partition up and running. It can also be easily applied to repair a corrupted external hard drive or HDD/SSD.

Note that this fix can cause serious file loss when run from the command line. As such, please ensure you use the Data Recovery Wizard, below, to save your data to another safe location before running CHDKSK.

Step 1: Connect the problem storage device to your computer.

Step 2: Click the Start button, type cmd, and press Enter to open the Command Prompt.

Step 3: Type in chkdsk h: /f /r /x or chkdsk h: /f, and press Enter. (h: should be replaced with the letter of your USB drive or SD card.)

Wait for the process to complete, and you'll have a healthy flash drive, USB, or SD card again.

Third-party free computer repair tools

If you're not comfortable using the Command Prompt, you can use a tool like CleanGenius, which has a graphical interface for running the disk check. It's as simple as clicking a button.

Step 1: Download CleanGenius for free on your computer.

Step 2: Run the software. Click “Optimize” on the left, and then choose “File Display.”

Step 3. Go to "Select Drive" and choose the drive with the file system error. Check the option to "Check and fix file system errors," then click "Perform."

Step 4. Wait for CleanGenius to finish the repair process. When it's done, click here to view the results.

How to Recover Data from a Damaged USB Drive

Most logical failures have data recovery solutions. If you see errors like "You need to format the disk before using it", "File system RAW", "Unallocated" on your flash drive, you can still happily use professional free data recovery software to retrieve data from it even if it's currently inaccessible. If the files and data saved on the damaged device are over 2GB, you need to upgrade this free flash drive recovery software to tools Data Recovery Wizard Pro to recover unlimited data.

These steps will teach you how to recover lost files from a USB flash drive. You can also apply this method to any storage device compatible with Windows.

Step 1: Run the USB Data Recovery software

Connect your USB drive or pen drive to the computer, and launch the Tools USB Data Recovery software on the PC. Select the drive labeled “External Drive,” and click “Scan” to begin searching for lost files.

Step 2. Scan and search for lost files on the USB drive

The Data Recovery Wizard will thoroughly scan your USB flash drive/pen drive and locate all lost data on it. After the scan is completed, use the "Filter" option to locate the required files.

Step 3: Recover all lost files from USB device

Double-click on them to preview the files. Select the target files you want to recover, then hit “Recover” to save them to a secure location on your computer or another external storage device.

Additional method to fix a corrupted USB Flash Drive – Formatting

After retrieving crucial data from a damaged storage device, you can format it directly to fix a corrupted or damaged USB flash drive or SD card.

Step 1: Connect your laptop/SD card to your computer.

Step 2: Right-click on "This PC" or "My Computer" and select "Manage".

Step 3: Click on Disk Management.

Step 4: Right-click on the corrupted or not working USB flash drive/SDD card and choose “Format”.

Step 5: Reassign the drive letter, file system, and other necessary settings for the portable drive or SD card.

Step 6: Click OK to complete the process.

You can also watch this video guide on how to recover data from USB in two ways: Recover Data from USB Drive.

FAQ: How to Fix a Damaged USB Flash Drive

If you still have issues, read on. These USB troubleshooting tips and fixes should help.

How do I fix a corrupted USB drive?

Follow the steps below to fix a damaged USB flash drive :

• Reinstall the USB driver
• Repair USB errors using the System Repair Wizard
• Run CHKDSK to fix a corrupted USB flash drive
• Repair USB errors with third-party repair tools

2. How to Use CMD to Fix a Corrupted USB Drive?

Here are the steps to fix a USB drive using the CHKDSK command in CMD: 1. **插入USB驱动器**：首先，将有问题的USB驱动器插入到电脑的USB端口中。 2. **打开命令提示符**：按下`Win + X`键组合，然后选择“命令提示符（管理员）”或“Windows PowerShell（管理员）”。如果你使用的是Windows 10，也可以在搜索栏中输入“cmd”，右键点击结果中的“命令提示符”，并选择“以管理员身份运行”。 3. **检测USB驱动器**：在命令提示符窗口中，你需要找到USB驱动器的盘符。通常，它会是像`E:`，`F:`这样的字母。你可以通过输入`diskpart`然后按`Enter`来打开磁盘分区工具。接着，输入`list disk`并再次按`Enter`。这将列出所有连接到计算机的硬盘和USB驱动器。找到你的USB驱动器（可能是编号较小的一个），并记下它的编号。 4. **选择USB驱动器**：在`diskpart`中，输入`select disk [编号]`，其中`[编号]`是你的USB驱动器编号，然后按`Enter`。例如，如果它是编号为1的磁盘，你会输入`select disk 1`。 5. **检查USB驱动器**：现在，输入`chkdsk /f /r /x [盘符]`，然后按`Enter`。这里的`[盘符]`是USB驱动器的字母，如`E:`。这个命令会修复USB驱动器上的错误，恢复可读取的扇区，并卸载驱动器以便进行检查。`/f`参数修复错误，`/r`查找并尝试恢复坏扇区，而`/x`强制卸载卷。 6. **等待过程完成**：CHKDSK命令可能需要一些时间，尤其是当USB驱动器包含大量数据时。请耐心等待，直到屏幕显示检查和修复过程已完成。 7. **退出并测试**：完成后，输入`exit`两次关闭`diskpart`和`CMD`。然后，拔出并重新插入USB驱动器，检查问题是否已解决。 请注意，如果在执行`chkdsk`命令时遇到权限问题，你可能需要在命令前加上`runas`，如下所示： ``` runas /user:your_username chkdsk /f /r /x E: ``` 将`your_username`替换为你的Windows用户名。系统会提示你输入密码，输入后按`Enter`继续。

1. Run Command Prompt as an administrator 2. In the CMD console, type `chkdsk X: /r` (replace X with the letter assigned to your USB drive), then press Enter. 3. Wait for CHKDSK to finish scanning and repairing the USB drive.

3. How can I fix a corrupted USB flash drive without formatting it?

Follow these steps to fix a corrupted USB drive without formatting it:

• Download and install the Data Recovery Wizard tool
• Select the USB drive where you lost your files
• Click the Scan button to find lost files
• Preview the files, then click the Recover button