How to flash a flash drive? Restoring the USB drive. Firmware and flash drive flash drive Transcend 16gb flash drive firmware
Portable USB-Flash drives have firmly entered our lives. They help us in work, study and leisure. But, probably, everyone was faced with the fact that one day the flash drive stops working as it should or is not detected by the computer at all. Many in this situation will prefer to send a broken flash drive to the trash and buy a new one in return. Fortunately, the prices for flash drives are now quite low. But do not rush to commit this rash act, as you can try to bring the flash drive back to life.
Today we will consider the issue of restoring the performance of a flash drive using the example of Transcend JetFlash 300 8Gb, which “hangs” while writing data and after extraction was not detected as a drive.
When the flash drive was connected to the PC, it blinked a diode with a smooth decay, as if telling us: “Ooops! There is a problem". The following picture was observed in the device manager:
In the properties of the device, it was clear that the flash drive was detected, VID and PID correspond to the model, but it was not displayed as a disk and was absent in the disk manager.
Any flash drive has a controller (control chip) and one or more memory chips inside. Due to failures, power problems or other reasons, the controller may be blocked, and in memory, like hard drives, "bad" sectors may appear.
In the event of a software failure, which occurs in our case, the flash drive resuscitation algorithm is as follows:
- We determine the manufacturer of the controller.
- We find the manufacturer's service utility.
- We put the controller into test mode, if required.
- We are restoring.
Considering the fact that the warranty for our Transcend JetFlash 300 8Gb has been out for a long time, we will not hesitate and analyze it:
Carefully pry the edge of the sticker from the side of the cover with a knife, lift it up. Under the sticker we see the latch tooth:
We press something thin on the latch tooth and pull the connector forward. You can use a thin screwdriver inserted between the housing and the colored plug:
The body separates quite easily:
And here we have a completely disassembled Transcend JetFlash 300 8 Gb flash drive in our hands:
Let's see what kind of controller chip? — SM3255Q AB.
On the reverse side we find a memory chip - Samsung K9BCG08U1A-MCB0
We have decided on the initial data. Now we begin the search for a utility from the wonderful site flashboot.ru
We have a chip from SMI, which means we are looking for a service utility that can work with the SM3255AB controller. Through trial and error, the utility was found - SMI MPTool V2.03.20 v2 J0324. Please note that there are a lot of versions of this utility, but only this version (v2 with J0324 at the end) saw our flash drive.
At first, no utility wanted to detect a USB flash drive. In specialized forums, in such cases, it is recommended to transfer the controller to test mode, in which the memory chip is not polled during the initialization of the flash drive (details on flashboot.ru). Then install the factory driver (complete with the utility).
To put the controller into test mode, you need to close two of its legs. But not any, but special! But, unfortunately, it is not always possible to find a datasheet (documentation) for the controller, and there is a high probability of shorting the wrong legs and completely burning the control chip. Therefore, they usually go the other way, namely, they look for a datasheet on a memory chip, and close the legs on it. The data bus of the memory chip and the controller is usually connected directly.
If we have a datasheet for our microcircuit, then in the circuit we look for pins signed as F0D0, F0D1, etc., this is the data bus. We close them in pairs with a thin screwdriver or tweezers before connecting a USB flash drive (it is convenient to use a USB extension cable), and try to determine in the utility (F5). for microchip samsung memory K9BCG08U1A-MCB0 the desired legs were 19-20. The legs are counted from the key (a point in the corner of the microcircuit) in the direction of the legs counterclockwise / clockwise, depending on the case. In our case, the outputs are arranged clockwise.
In our case, the flash drive was detected by the system, so the factory driver was installed without the need to put the controller into test mode. The driver is located in the folder with the utility, along the path ..\UFD_MP\FactoryDriver\WinXP\SMIInfUpdate.exe
Although the driver itself is designed for XP, it was successfully installed on 7-ke.
Here we enter the VID and PID of our flash drive and press the SMI Factory Driver button, after which the driver installation will complete. We reconnect the flash drive to the PC. Now in Device Manager it should look like this:
Many factors lead to the “diseases” of flash drives (when they refuse to work). In this publication, we will not be interested in them (reasons), but in ways to return gadgets to full functioning - how to flash or reflash a flash drive.
It is not difficult to flash or flash a flash drive.
The main purpose of using a flash drive is to write data. Data (together with flash) have a wide variety of purposes - from simple storage before booting the OS (even fingerprint verification).
Architecture and recording system
It is also important for the topic of our article to understand its constituent components:
- The physical connection to the PC is made using the USB interface (sometimes it is microUSB);
- Controller;
- Memory chip;
- USB signal oscillator.
For recording, the FAT system (16, 32 or ex) is used (depending on the size). For capacities over 64 GB, exFAT or NTFS. If using the gadget becomes problematic (read-write errors) - it needs to be formatted or reflashed.
Windows Tools
Flashing a flash drive
If formatting the drive is not available (the OS program reports errors and special utilities do not work), then to bring it back to life, you will need a flash drive firmware, or rather, a flash drive controller firmware.
The correct name for what is commonly called firmware is firmware, which consists of controller microcode and service data on microcircuits. The microcode is embedded in the device during manufacture at the factory. But the service is often rewritten during operation.
Software repair (repeating factory actions) includes clearing, testing memory, compiling new translation tables and writing them into service fields - this is exactly what “low-level formatting” is.
Utilities for such work have a strict specialization in controller models. Therefore, the repairman needs to find one that corresponds to a specific instance (after all, microcircuit options can change from batch to batch!) - patiently sorting through even more than a dozen.
We define the brand (type)
Before flashing a USB flash drive, you need to determine the values \u200b\u200bof VID, PID for it. From them we will recognize the model, and from it we will find technological software for repair. To determine the model, it would be easiest to look at the marking after opening the case. It will be more gentle to use software methods.
Special software is used to find the VID (identifying manufacturer) and PID (for product identification) codes that recognize any USB flash drive. For one of the devices it will help us (for example) Flash program Drive Information Extractor (there are many others).
After installing the application and running the GetFlashInfo.exe file, click "Get Data". Let's get an example report:
Based on the obtained values for VID and PID, substituted in the database window, the controller and the program (UTILS) for flashing the flash drive are determined:
With the same controller, there will be other devices in the list. Of these, the more similar one is selected (intuitively). Now we find the utility - in the search we drive in the found name. If what you are looking for is not found on this site, then you can google it or turn to other sources. Even if the name is slightly different - it's okay - it should work.
Choosing an OS for technoutilities
Technological utilities work better under Windows XP - production workers are more conservative and not chasing fashion. In addition, due to the fact that it will require the installation of drivers and other "dangerous" actions, you need to have administrator rights.
We reflash the found program
We turn off the drive, run the executable exe file of the downloaded and unpacked utility (in this case, MPTool.exe).
IMPORTANT. It is worth looking in the archive for a text file "read me" (readme.txt) - it may contain useful information. It may contain an instruction or a hyperlink to a source with it. English text translate with google translator.
After launching the application, we connect the USB flash drive to the PC - information about it appears in the program window. By pressing the "Start" key, the flashing starts. The process is indicated by a yellow bar.
At the end - an encouraging text will be displayed on the green background of one of the cells - OK.
The OS immediately prompts you to format the disk. If a correct driver you have installed, then everything will work out. If not, then you need to disconnect / attach the gadget. Then the driver will be installed automatically and the flash drive will appear in the explorer - you can format it.
With another utility, the actions may be slightly different, but not so critical that it cannot be dealt with.
Manufacturers began to spread to the public software flash drive repair. To download what you need in a particular case - in the technical support section, the model is indicated (sometimes additionally serial number). In some cases, the serial number is requested by the software itself (with verification via the Internet). SerialCheck authentication will not be superfluous, since fakes surround us everywhere.
Almost any model can be revived with the help of proprietary programs. Plus the ability to find a similar case on the forums. The firmware of the controller of the Chinese flash drive is no different, except for their smaller capacity compared to the declared one. A flash drive with an unidentified controller brand can be non-repairable.
Difficult cases include SanDisk flash drives. It has to do with corporate policy. The company itself carries out a full production cycle - from the development of non-standard solutions to sales. There is no repair software for them. If you can’t find the utility, don’t worry and use the bucket.
Flash drive prevention
As we have already understood, it is better not to bring the flash drive to the point of need for repair. Here are some recommendations to minimize unwanted effects:
- Protection from temperature fluctuations, from the influence of water, aggressive environments, mechanical influences, x-rays, electromagnetic fields. Accuracy of insertion/extraction;
- Filling the flash drive "to the eyeballs" of it file system may be damaged. A dangerous symptom when recording is slowing down and freezing;
- Check the flash drive using OS tools, do defragmentation;
- Do not use a flash drive as the only copy of data (imagine that you have only one apartment key);
- Follow the procedure for safely removing the flash drive;
- To avoid static discharges, do not touch the contacts of the flash drive with your fingers, metal objects, avoid contact with other synthetics;
- At strange behavior flash drives, do not rush to treat it with low-level programs. First copy important file to another media, and then start repairing.
Now you know how to flash a USB flash drive and you can figure it out on your own. May your flash drives live long.
Leave your comments.
I got into a little trouble. A 32 GB flash drive from transcend stopped working. That is operating system does not see her. And not that there would be very valuable information there, but because of the large volume, it became a pity to throw away the flash drive “without a fight”.
Using the standard JetFlash utility recovery tool Failed to revive the device. I had to find another way. After a little "googling" on the topic of how to restore a USB flash drive, I found it directly from the manufacturer online service for firmware.
The service, for obvious reasons, only supports devices manufactured by Transcend. If it happened to your flash drive that it refuses to be detected in the system or some other malfunction has occurred. Do not rush to throw it away, but try to restore it using the online recovery service.
It was with the help of him that I managed to restore the performance of my flash drive.
For greater clarity, I recorded a video on how to restore a flash drive using the transcend service:
To use the transcend flash drive recovery service, you need to go to the site by entering the following address in the address bar of your browser: http://en.transcend-info.com/support/DlCenter/DLSoftware.asp?SID=3
So, let's go to the service page. Select the type of your device.
You will need to register to download the program.
You will be prompted to download the OnlineRecovery program. It should be noted here that the program will require administrator rights! Therefore, you need to run the utility as an administrator.
After starting the program, you need to select the volume of the drive to be restored. In my case, this is 4 gigabytes, and click "OK"
While the program is running, do not turn off the Internet connection!
After the program checks the flash drive, you will be prompted to restore the device without saving data, or you can try to restore the information.
We press start.
That's all. We are waiting for the end of the process, after which we remove the flash drive and check the performance.
In this article, I wrote how to restore a transcend flash drive using the manufacturer's regular service.
Thus, I managed to recover two flash drives of 32 and 4 gigabytes. I hope this method will help you too. Good luck.
Many users neglect the safe removal of flash drives, as a result of which the drives stop working correctly: they are not recognized by the system, they require formatting, they do not read / write data, they show the wrong volume (for example, 14 Gb instead of 16 Gb). If you are faced with a similar problem, then the question of how to restore a flash drive will surely become relevant for you.
Can a flash drive be restored?
It may seem to someone that restoring a flash drive is a pointless exercise. Drives from Transcend, Kingston, A-Data and other manufacturers have flooded the market by making flash memory cheap. Memory cards and flash drives from 8 Gb to 32 Gb are not so expensive that you can’t safely throw them away and buy new media. However, old flash drives and Micro SD memory cards are usually not thrown away at all: they lie on the table and are waiting to be restored.
Recovery is possible if the flash drive or memory card has not “died” completely (usually death occurs when the controller burns out).
But if the drive is simply not detected or shows the wrong volume, then the reason for this behavior is most often a controller firmware failure. How to recover a flash drive after such a failure, we will analyze in detail below.
Saving information and searching for the right software
If the flash drive or SD card is stored important information, then before flashing and restoring the controller (and with it the health of the drive), you need to extract the data. This can be done using the Photorec utility, which can work with media that do not have a file system detected.
After extracting the necessary information from the SD card or flash drive, you can start searching for a utility for flashing the controller. But in order to flash the controller, you first need to determine its model. To do this, we use the CheckUDisk utility (distributed for free) and the flashboot.ru website:
After completing the verification and receiving necessary information(VID PID of the drive) you need to download the utility to restore the performance of a flash drive or SD drive. Go to the flashboot.ru website and open the "iFlash" tab. Here you need to enter the VID PID values and find the correct manufacturer of the memory card or flash drive (HP, Generic Flash Disk, Protex, Oltramax, Smartbuy, etc.). 
If your model of a flash drive or SD memory card is not in the database of the online service, then it's okay: the main thing is that the VID PID and the manufacturer match. If the required data matched, then you need to get information about the exact controller model for flashing and restoring it, as well as the name of the appropriate utility. 
The table has columns "Controller" and "Utility". You need to pay attention to the volume - the controllers of flash drives and SD cards for 16 Gb and 32 Gb may differ. You need to copy the full name of the utility and download it through the "Files" section on the flashboot.ru website or from another source. Often, along with the recovery program, instructions for its use are downloaded, which it is advisable to carefully read.
Controller Firmware
Let's say you have a 16 Gb Protec flash drive. You find it by VID PID through the iFlash online service and download the controller firmware utility for free. What to do next? Carry out measures to restore the flash drive (SD memory card).
Universal instructions for restoring all flash drives:
If the firmware is successful, then you should see the positive status of the flash drive - “OK” or “Good”. If problems occur during the operation, an error code will appear: its decryption can be found in the utility help found by VID PID, or on other online services.
Recovery of any flash drives (SD cards) is carried out approximately according to the same scheme, however, the instructions may differ slightly for different utilities: you need to find the program for flashing the controller by VID PID and run usb recovery drive. 
To recover a flash drive, you must additionally format it. You can execute it standard means Windows or using special programs. It is recommended to run a full format rather than a quick format. It will take a little longer (especially if the drive is larger than 16 Gb), but you will be sure that the flash drive is now completely clean and functional.
Recently, one more thing has been added to my main non-working “healing” activities (computer repair, reinstallation and configuration). Flash recovery. Carried non-stop. handfuls. Toli flash drives began to do worse, toli people stop protecting them, but the fact remains: not a week goes by without someone throwing me this kind of “hack”.
The usual phrase uttered by a client when handing over a dead flash drive to me usually sounds like this: “I gave (a) to our computer specialists - they said that they couldn’t fix it ...”. In general, I am a gullible person, but regarding computers - until I try it myself, I will not calm down. So, from 100% of flash drives with a diagnosis of “Throw away” from outside computer scientists, I restored ... 100%! It's surprisingly simple what drives such "computers" ... Is it like "too lazy to mess around"? Usually it takes me 10 - 20 minutes to recover ... Or is it not knowing “how”? But no one canceled the Internet! It seems to me that having stupidly tried to format the flash drive and received the error “The disk cannot be formatted”, they boldly recommend throwing it away working flash drive in the trash...
Especially for such “computers” (I will return a note to the “computers” with the address of this article to the client along with the flash drive), as well as for everyone wanting to know spend brief educational program flash drive recovery.
Theory
Let's start with the theoretical part. You can skip it if you wish. What is a flash drive made of? Very simple. Typically, such a device contains 2 microcircuits: the first is the flash memory itself, where the data is stored. The second is a microcontroller that handles the read/write operations of the memory chip and provides data transfer from the computer via USB to the memory and vice versa.
Drive failures occur both in the first microcircuit and in the second. The microcontroller has a cache and is controlled by its firmware, which performs read / write operations to the cache and transfer from the cache to the memory chip. As a result of many factors (such as, for example, a flash drive pulled out of the computer ahead of time, power failures, poor contact in the connector, static electricity, etc.), phenomena such as damage to the contents of the controller cache or damage to its firmware occur.
In the first case, the data from the cache will either not be written to the memory chip, or will be written corrupted. In the second case, everything is much worse, because a failure of the microcontroller control program can do anything to the memory. Until writing to it full of garbage. In addition, flash memory itself has a limited write resource, albeit a large one. Also, the controller can block some memory operations if it doesn't like something.
It is because of such failures that the flash drive stops working normally. At the same time, often the hardware of the flash drive remains fully functional. It is only necessary to either fix the brains of the microcontroller, or fix the memory. Here is a list of the most common flash drive software failures:
- The drive is not recognized by the system
- The drive is detected, but shows a size of zero or less than it was
- Windows asks to format flash drive but it won't format
- When trying to write to a flash drive, windows swears "remove write protection"
- Messages like "Insert disc in drive" or "No access to disc"
Practice
Attention! Using the following practice in 99% of cases will lead to damage to the information stored on the drive! If you need the flash drive itself, proceed as described below. If you need information from it, look for a specialized company that is engaged in data recovery from flash memory. Such firms have special equipment that can connect to a memory chip bypassing the flash drive controller and pull everything out as it is for further recovery.
1. Recovery utilities from the manufacturer of the flash drive
If your flash drive failed eminent manufacturer such as Transcend, Kingston, Kingmax, A-Data, etc., then first things first go to the manufacturer's website in search of a recovery utility. It makes sense to look at the manufacturer's website even if he is not named. You look lucky. The main thing is that he is known, this manufacturer. (in one of my cases, Samsung was written on the flash drive, but I did not find any utilities on the GNUSMAS website). On the manufacturer's website, we are looking for a utility like recovery tool or format tool, in general, a recovery utility. We download the utility, if we find it, we launch it with the sick flash drive inserted, follow the instructions of the program and in 50% of cases we rejoice at the flash drive that has come to life, as clean as from a store.
If you have a flash drive no name, i.e. it is not known what was the name of that Chinese child who soldered her for a handful of rice in a basement on the outskirts of Beijing, then we move on to the next paragraph.
If you are in those 50% that the utility from the manufacturer did not help, then we also move on to the next item.
Here are some links to recovery utilities from different companies:
kingmax: Recovery Program - find your flash drive in the photo and download the appropriate Recovery Program for it
Transcend: JetFlash Online Recovery - download and repair your JetFlash. Everything except the JetFlash V15 model, it needs a separate utility, it is downloaded there.
A data: Support/Download Site
2. Dances with a tambourine
If you have failed Chinese no name or there is no utility on the manufacturer’s website or it is there but did not help, then you are here. This is where all your creativity will be revealed 🙂
First of all, I will say that there are not so many companies producing memory and controllers for flash drives. The rest (even the most eminent ones) either buy components from them and stamp their own, or stupidly buy ready-made faceless drives and instruct Chinese kids to draw beautiful labels on them. Why am I doing this? And to the fact that each manufacturer of components for flash drives has its own proprietary utility recovery!
It is this utility that we have to use, having previously found out what kind of controller is in our flash drive. So:
1. We find out the manufacturer of the flash drive controller. To do this, we need to find out its VID (Vendor ID) and PID (Product ID). This can be done for example with the CheckUDisk program. Download it, run it, stick a flash drive and see something like this:
I circled what we need in red, namely VID and PID. In my case (I restored from the dead Kingston DataTraveler with a capacity of 1 Gb) VID = 13fe, and PID = 1d00.
2. After we have calculated the VID and PID, we go to look for it in the database of recovery utilities on the flashboot.ru website. on this site at the top, enter our VID (you can PID) in the field, click the “Find” button and we get a sign with a bunch of lines. We are looking for something there that looks like our flash drive, namely: we are looking for the same VID, PID, volume and, preferably, the manufacturer (if it is known, of course). In relation to my test subject, the following fell out:
As you can see from the screenshot, the database contains similar information: Kingston DataTraveler, with a capacity of 1 GB. You can also see that the controller of this flash drive is made by Phison, and that there is a Phison Preformat v.1.30 (UP10, UP11) utility. There is no reference to the utility in this line, but it is also above, in other lines, and below. Download this program, run it and see:
This is a low-level formatter. It offers 4 options, but I chose “Low Level Formatting (Full)” just in case. Click OK and...
After a short wait and watching the inscription “Formatting”, we see a window joyfully reporting that the low-level formatting has been successfully completed and that the shutter needs to be pulled, i.e. take out the flash drive and insert it again. We do what is said and ... “A miracle happened! A friend saved a friend's life!” (c) M / f “Kid and Carlson”. In general, the flash drive is back in the ranks. Alive again. Windows required formatting. I agreed (like I had a choice :)). And that's it. The flash drive is like new. Hammering her info on the grunt and subsequent reading showed that everything is OK with her!
It doesn’t really look like dancing with a tambourine, does it? And all because my case turned out to be simple. In my case, the Phison company, which made the controller of the flash drive that I was restoring, made a simple utility that my former colleague Uncle Kuzmich, who, being a car mechanic, became interested in computers at the age of 60, will understand.
It gets much tougher. I clarify: among the utilities on the indicated site there are professional things (it's understandable, these are programs for internal use, for specialists). These utilities are terribly fancy, with a bunch of options that you need to delve into. There are no manuals for these programs, the truth is learned by experience or sought out from those crumbs of information that can be found on the flashboot.ru website and on the Internet.
Here's an example: the other day I taxied on the road, took a passenger (I usually don't take it) with a fool. He was very drunk and tried to run around the cabin of my big car VAZ-11113 “OKA” ... In short, this bad person drove his knee into my radio tape recorder, in which a 4 GB Kingmax SuperStick flash drive stuck out. She fell out and fell. After lifting and inserting it back, the radio tape recorder cursed “unsupported device” and took offense. At home, in the computer, she was also not found. According to VID and PID, the SMI_SMI32X_I1030_v2.02.02 utility was found, the settings of which look like this:
In general, I was unable to restore it. But I didn't expect it. Because my radio tape recorder had already burned 6 different flash drives that were pulled out of it during the game ( Sony It surprises me, to be honest, was it really impossible to come up with a defense?). But there are a lot of options in these settings. I have shown them so that you are ready to face such an obstacle.
By the way, the same program 2 weeks ago with default settings restored someone else's device (looks like a bullet) with the Rover logo. A month ago, she was restored to a gold gift flash drive from Samsung.
In general, be prepared for difficult decisions 🙂 According to my personal statistics, I was unable to recover only those flash drives that my Sony car radio burned down 🙂
And finally
And finally, I will say: do not be afraid! Set yourself up for the fact that the flash drive is dead anyway. It will turn out to be restored - cool (and it turns out very often), but it doesn’t work out - well, figs with her, the lady has died ... The main thing is not to be afraid to experiment.
If it doesn’t work out, you can ask questions on the flashboot.ru site forum (just carefully read what is already there, professionals don’t like babies), or here: if I know, I’ll answer.
For sim - I'm sorry. Good luck in treating patients!
