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Kingston format utility. Kingston USB flash drive recovery

Recovery of USB flash drives has its own characteristics. The good news is that these devices, unlike SD cards, are repairable. Therefore, if it is impossible to exchange a flash drive under warranty, why not take advantage of a 60-70% chance to repair it.

The article will consider various cases, typical problems associated with the breakdown of flash drives, and options for their solution.

Recover data or repair flash drive?

They are not the same thing, although the concepts are related.

The main task that the repair solves is to restore the performance of the flash drive so that it:

defined as a storage device in Disk management,
was correctly defined in Explorer,
read and write data.

As a result usb repair flash drives are easy to lose all the data on it, while it will be available for writing and reading.

File recovery is possible only on a working USB flash drive.

The main reasons for the failure of a usb flash drive

How to understand that a USB flash drive needs repair:

When a flash drive is connected, the LED on its case does not light;
The device is not recognized on another computer / laptop;
The flash drive is defined as an unidentified usb device.

Damage to a USB drive is easy. Like any physical device, flash memory is affected external influences(shock, thermal impact, water ingress, etc.). In addition, there are a number of software errors due to which the flash drive does not work.

Damaged USB connector pins

Often, the problem lies in a damaged contact between the controller and the USB connector.

How to check. To check the flash drive for this problem, test it on another computer. Alternatively, insert another USB flash drive (if available) into the USB port of the same computer.

If other flash drives are readable on a PC without problems, the problem is probably in the current storage medium.

If you are unable to read data from a flash drive only on this computer, the problem may be in the USB sockets motherboard PC or laptop.

How to fix.

Here is a link to a third-party guide on how to repair a usb connector: Repairing a usb connector on a laptop yourself.
If you don't want to tinker with wires, it's better to give a PC or flash drive with a broken one. usb port in repair. The approximate cost of replacing usb is $ 20 - 50.

Hardware-mechanical problem: damaged controller

Most often, everything rests on the flash drive controller, which is the main link in the operation of the drive. The controller contains important microcircuits, and disconnecting a contact or burning out a leg will make data recovery on a flash drive very problematic.

How to fix a flash drive.

Replace the controller yourself (which is unrealistic at home).
Take the USB drive to the service - however, repairing the flash memory will cost decent money. You will not find a controller for a USB flash drive on sale. In the laboratory, they can find a donor flash drive and “replant” the faulty controller.
If the data stored on a flash drive is vital and you would like to recover it, the laboratory can use an expensive software and hardware system to extract data bypassing the hardware controller.

The cost of services can be found directly from specialists in a company that repairs flash drives in your city. It can start from $30 and go up to $500-1000.

Flashing a damaged flash drive

The USB flash drive contains firmware - microcode with service data. When damaged usb firmware flash drive will inevitably stop working.

How to fix. Such a flash drive cannot be formatted with the usual universal software like SDFormatter., It will need a complete “trepanation” - flashing. This will require proprietary utility from the manufacturer.

However, you can only reflash a flash drive by learning the name of the controller. The difficulty lies in the fact that manufacturers, as a rule, use different types and models of controllers and can implement not only their own, but also other people's developments. Therefore, it is not always possible to immediately determine the type of flash controller.

Fortunately, there are special programs that allow you to determine the type of VID & PID * for Transcend drives, Silicon power and etc.; we will list them with reference to the installers.

(* VID is manufacturer ID, PID is device ID.)

After the warranty repair, all the photos on the smartphone and on the SD card disappeared.

Answer. A very vague question. Warranty repairs were made - mobile device Or memory cards? All your claims against the performers are governed by your contract.

As for data recovery on an sd card, use specialized applications, which, in fact, this site is dedicated to.

A 2GB flash card from an old Nokia phone, the phone sees the flash drive perfectly, the tablet and other phones do not see it. Other people's flash cards my equipment sees.

Answer. If other flash cards do not open on your, as you say, old Nokia, then most likely because the phone simply does not support new technologies. Read the documentation and specifications for your device. Maybe it's time to upgrade your hardware?

My 32GB micro flash drive broke in half. How can I recover information on this flash drive, tell me, please, where and who can help me, how to fix the flash drive?

Answer. Alas, this flash drive cannot be repaired or somehow reanimated. If the firmware “flew” on your flash drive, then you could give some chance for recovery. As for physical damage, it all depends on the damage. If the flash memory chips are intact, you can read the data through a PC 3000 Flash reader, etc.

Only Possible Solution(if the files are not of particular importance) - purchase a new microsd card.

The flash drive does not open, does not appear as a removable disk, does not appear in the device manager. Physical impact is excluded, because. There are three such flash drives, different people worked with them.

Answer. You didn't specify the type of memory you're working with. In any case, if a flash drive or sd card does not open, I would advise you to check the operation of the flash card on other devices. Test it on other phones or devices to which it can be connected. If it's an sd card, try connecting it to your PC via a card reader.

Check if the attached device is detected in Device Manager. If yes, use any disk partitioning program or regular Windows tools, or proprietary software available on the flash drive developer's website to format the flash drive in NTFS or FAT.

During the formatting of the flash drive (transcend), the flash drive was pulled out from the PC. It was clear that she would no longer work, the check confirmed this. The computer does not detect the flash drive, the indicator blinks all the time, it is not in "my computer", it is in the device manager, it says that it works fine, it is defined as a storage device. Help to restore the transcend flash drive!

Answer. Probably, the file table on your flash drive has been damaged. You can still restore the operation of a flash drive if you create a partition on it and format it. You can reanimate a flash drive, as already mentioned, using specialized utilities like Acronis Disc Director and so on, but it is best to use the TestDisk application to partition and restore a transcend flash drive.

The flash drive was encrypted in TrueCrypt, I reinstalled the OS, I mount the flash drive, the files are displayed, but when I try to open them, I get an error - access denied. Can you tell me if it is possible to save information if the flash drive is not detected after encryption?

Answer. You will need a client program to work with Truecrypt. Alas, on this moment truecrypt.org is down and the project is closed. So try to find the app somewhere on the internet. After that, when opening files, you will be required to enter a password to access your files.

The flash drive has been reset and the system requires to format the flash drive, but I need to save very important and expensive files. Help!

Answer. In no case do not agree to format your flash drive! Instead, use data recovery software and try to restore the missing partition on your storage device. You can safely copy all saved information to HDD and then search among these blockages for exactly what you need.

There is a flash drive JetFlash Transcend 8GB. Has ceased to be determined by the system. Formatted it with a program JetFlash Online Recovery and she deleted all the data from the flash drive. Is it possible now to recover the Transcend flash drive, that is, the data on it?

Answer. To recover a Transcend flash drive, the Unformat program is suitable. The chances of recovery depend on the depth of formatting. Anyway, use the deep scan option. Alternatively, try Recuva with a similar scanning option.

Kingston Format Utility is a proprietary utility that is designed to format Kingston USB drives. In general, the program was released specifically for "flash drives" of the HyperX DTHX30 / XXGB series, but, nevertheless, it supports any other drives from this manufacturer. Compared to standard means Windows formatting, this program shows a much higher speed. It has no other significant advantages.

Kingston Format Utility can convert media file system to FAT32 and NTFS. Both of these file systems has its advantages and disadvantages. We will not go into them now, but only note that FAT32 is better suited for storing small files, and NTFS for large ones. Moreover, drives in FAT32 format have a limitation that does not allow files larger than 4 GB to be written to them, which must be considered when choosing a file system before starting the formatting process.

All the necessary utility controls are concentrated in one small window where you can select the desired media (if there are several connected) and specify the source file system. Formatting will begin immediately after pressing the "Format" key. The program works with media of any size and does not need to be installed. The only thing you need to do before launching it is to unpack the downloaded archive.

Key features and functions

quick formatting of USB-drives from the manufacturer Kingston;
file support NTFS systems and FAT32;
work in portable mode;
a minimum of controls in the main application window;
faster performance than the standard Windows format tool.

This article is intended to help you software recovery USB Flash Drive, made on the basis of the SK6211 microcontroller manufactured by Skymedi. This controller is found in flash drives from various manufacturers, for example: Kingston, Kingmax, A-data, etc. The utility was chosen as an example. It, like many others, is designed to work in the OS environment - MS Win XP. A Kingston DT100 / 1GB flash drive was chosen as the "experimental" one.

The utility kit includes:
1) SK6211_20090828.exe - the main module itself.
2) SK6211_User_Manual.pdf - instruction for the program in English
3) SK6211BA_Skymedi Flash Support List _20090828.xls - "Flashlist" - a list of memory modules that are supported this version utilities. (Useful for determining "CodeBankVer" by date)
4) SK6211BA R-W Performance_Capacity List_20090828.xls - A summary table of speed tests of various memory modules in single-channel and dual-channel modes in Win XP sp2 & Win 2k sp4.
5) SK62XX_FAT_20090505.exe & SK62XX_FATool_UserGuideV1.pdf - an auxiliary utility for flash testing.
6) ErrorCodes.txt - list of error codes.
7) DrvSwitch.exe - factory driver.
8) Driver_Using_manual.pdf - instructions for using the driver.

1. Preparation

We connect the flash drive and find out the VID / PID, for example, using ChipGenius 3.0. Subject has VID = 0951 PID = 1607.
Run the "SK6211_20090828.exe" utility and select default in the "Configuration Selection".

We see that in the first window (DUT1) a flash drive was detected (SAMPLE - No Match), but so far it is not ready for firmware! SAMPLE = example, No Mach = No Match. This means that the current settings (default) do not match the internals of the flash drive. The utility has already determined that the flash drive is built on a controller that responds to its requests and has already read information from its firmware.
Viewing this information is done by double-clicking on SAMPLE.

Here we see the contents of the firmware:
1) SK6211 controller
2) Memory FID (AD D3 14 A5 34) and its name (HY27UT088G2A)
3) CodeBank version: C080512A_F080516A
4) Firmware version: CodeSwap-0512
5) The rest is not so important (date of manufacture / utility version / configuration name = “engraving on the USB connector” / VID & PID codes, etc.)
6) Channel: Byte Mode (Single-channel mode. May come in handy in the settings!)

Everything is good here! But what to do with the code that the firmware has flown so that most of this information is not there !?

Controller Version: SK6211BA
Flash Part No.: No matched Flash Part No.
Flash ID 01: 0x89 0x95 0x94 0x1E 0x74
Flash ID 02: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
Flash ID 03: 0x89 0x95 0x94 0x1E 0x74

Here, the utility read the FID from the flash drive, but was unable to select the memory from its list!
Conclusion: try another utility or check contacts. Sometimes restoring contacts on the Data Bus between the controller and the memory changes the ID-shnik and the utility, by the correct ID-shnik, finds a match in its Database.

Controller Version: SK6211BA
Flash Part No.: I29F32G08AAMD1_S
Total Flash Size: 8192 MB
4K Page, MLC
Flash ID 01: 0x89 0xD7 0x94 0x3E 0x84
Flash ID 02: 0x89 0xD7 0x94 0x3E 0x84
Flash ID 03: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
Flash ID 04: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
Flash ID 05: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
Flash ID 06: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
Flash ID 07: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
Flash ID 08: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00

Here the utility found memory in its database. But the Code Bank version is unknown! We find it by searching for the date by the name of the flash chip in the file SK6211BA_Skymedi Flash Support List _20090828.xls

Now we are looking for suitable Code bank.
Opening the file:
…\SK6211_PDT_20090828\CodeBank\2806\CBVer-1.2.2.44.ini

We find the version by date 09.03.09: C090309A_F090309A

2. Settings

Let's go back to the subject. Click on the “Advaced” button to go to the advanced settings. The password is 123456.
1) prescribe VID & PID: 0951 & 1607
2) Vendor Name: Kingston
3) Product Name: DataTraveler 2.0
4) Revision: 8.2 (leave unchanged)
5) Disk Type: Removable (leave unchanged)
6) S/N: 001478544881SK8703120829 (this is the experimental serial number)
7) S / N Gen: (3) Don "t Change SN
Below you can skip to
8) Fixed Flash Size = 1024 (set the original size of the flash drive)
9) When you set the checkbox to Erase All, a message is displayed: Warning Message: System information will be eliminated after erase all!!!
(Warning: system information will be deleted after setting the "delete everything" mode !!!)
Go to the right window Flash Options
10) Select controller: SK6211BA
11) Select Code Bank Ver: C080512A_F080516A (the one that the utility issued by double-clicking on SAMPLE) Now I'm waiting for the Flash Selection section to be able to select the desired memory - HY27UT088G2A, but this does not happen. What is the reason? Perhaps in the utility version! After all, the firmware version is indicated: PDT Version: SK6211_PDT_20080616_BA, and I use SK6211_20090828! We go along the path of choosing a b/w flashlist. We find the date - 04/02/2008, but I can't find a name with such a date in the list, and Code Bank versions with the nearest date don't fit either! The assumption that the date from the flashlist matches does not work for this flash drive. Helped only full enumeration! When choosing C090828A_F090828A, the utility made it possible to select the desired memory!
12) Next, select Channel Mode: Single
We don't change anything else.

Get READY status

Now the utility is “ready” to flash the flash drive.
Click Auto-LLF

3. Work on the bugs

44 -
2 -
when changing read/write test error 37 -

The jackdaw on ERASE ALL helped

45 -
(Status READY, error in LLF process)

Helped: switching to test mode by closing 31-32 feet per m / s of memory
and re-firmware
_______________________________

101 -

Need a more recent version of the utility with new memory support
ps: in previous version 20090709_BA (34 - )
_______________________________

94 -
1 -
When trying to flash - (Access error)

Removed the USB extension cable, due to which there were losses.
_______________________________

In the work on the bugs, the experience of forum users was used: Vitorrio, SeeJay, E1haZ and others.

Discussion of the article and problems during recovery are discussed in this forum thread.

Kingston flash drives are very popular due to the fact that they are quite inexpensive and reliable. It cannot be said that they are cheaper than others, but their cost can still be called low. But, since absolutely everything breaks in our world, it is not at all surprising that Kingston removable media can also fail.

This happens quite simply - you insert a USB flash drive into a computer, and he "does not want" to read data from it. The drive may be detected, but everything will look as if there is no data on it. Or simply not all data may be determined. In general, situations can be very different. In any case, we will analyze a few effective ways restore the performance of a Kingston drive.

Kingston has its own flash drive recovery tools. There is also universal way recovery of removable media, which is relevant for devices of any company. We will analyze all the most working methods.

Method 1: MediaRECOVER

This is one of two branded programs from Kingston. To use it, you must do the following:

The second option looks more humane» for a flash drive. It just involves restoring a flash drive. In any case, if using MediaRECOVER doesn't help, move on to the next method.

Method 2: Kingston Format Utility

This is another brand Kingston program. It is suitable for all flash drives of this brand, from the DTX 30 series to USB devices Datatraveler HyperX. This utility also formats the flash drive without a chance to save any information. To use the Kingston Format Utility, do the following:

Method 3: HDD Low Level Format Tool

Judging by user reviews, this program does an excellent job with damaged Kingston flash drives. Low Level Format Tool works at a low level, so it is quite successful in what it does. And this applies not only to removable media from Kingston. But, again, the utility formats the flash drive and restores its performance, but not the data from it. To use this program, you need to do quite a bit, namely:

Method 4: Super Stick Recovery Tool

Another very simple program, designed to restore Kingmax flash drives, but is also suitable for Kingston (although for many it will seem quite unexpected). So, to take advantage of the Super Stick recovery tool, do the following:

program, insert a USB flash drive and run the executable file.
If everything is fine and the program can work with your flash drive, information about it will appear in the main window. Click on the button " update" to start formatting. After that, just wait until the process is over and try to work with the flash drive again.

Method 5: Search for other recovery utilities

Not all models Kingston flash drives those programs that are indicated in methods 1-4 will do. In fact, there are a lot of such programs. In addition, there is a single database with information about programs designed for recovery. It is located on the site's iFlash service. The process for using this repository is as follows:

This method is suitable for all flash drives.

Method 6: Standard Windows Tools

If all the above methods did not help, you can always use standard means Windows formatting.

You can also use the standard Windows tool to format the flash drive. Try different combinations of the order of actions - first format, then check and correct errors, and then vice versa. It is quite possible that something will still help and the flash drive will become operational again. To format removable media, right-click again on the selected drive in " computer". In the dropdown menu, click " Format…". Next, in the next window, just click on the " To begin».

It is worth saying that all the above methods, except for checking the disk with the standard Windows tool, involve the complete and irretrievable loss of data from the media. Therefore, before performing all these methods, use one of the data recovery utilities from a damaged storage medium.