Flash drive recovery: controller definition, flash drive firmware. USB flash drive recovery via controller firmware Utility for flash drive recovery kingston datatraveler 8gb
Kingston flash drives are known for their reliability and long life, but they are also not immune to various failures. Sometimes the drive really "dies" and it is not possible to restore it. More often there are situations when a flash drive can be brought back to life using a special firmware utility.
Most often, Kingston dt100g2 and datatraveler flash drives break.
Is it possible to recover a flash drive
Signs that the drive can be recovered:
- When you connect a flash drive, a notification appears that a new device has been detected.
- The system prompts you to format the removable drive.
- Drive won't open but shows up in File Explorer.
- Errors occur when reading and writing data.
These problems are fixed by flashing the controller or formatting the media, but if the flash drive has important information, then before performing any recovery procedures, you need to try to “pull it out”. Use a recovery program like Recuva or to extract so you don't lose your files.
Search for a program for controller firmware
To restore you will need special utility for Kingston flash drive. In order not to make a mistake and download the right program, you need to know the drive controller model.
Method 1
You can view the necessary information on the flashboot.ru website in the iFlash section, using the VID and PID values \u200b\u200bof the flash drive as a filter.
- Connect the drive to your computer.
- Open the device manager (right click on the "Computer" icon - Manage).
- Find "USB Mass Storage Device".
- Right click and open properties.
- Go to the Details section and select the Hardware ID property.
Method 2
Another way to get the information you need is to download the Flash Drive Information Extractor and click the "Get Data" button. The report will contain the lines "VID" and "PID"; use their value to find a utility that can correctly restore the Kingston Datatraveler flash drive.
You can download the program in the "Files" section on the flashboot.ru website. If the utility is not here, try to find it on other web resources. 
Recovery utilities
You can find the desired program without a controller model - just type in the search engine the query "utility restoration kingston". In the results, you will see several utilities, among which there will definitely be such programs as Phison Preformat, AlcorMP AU698x RT, etc.
The problem is that Kingston flash drive recovery programs only work if they are compatible with the controller installed in the drive. Therefore, if you download the first repair utility that comes across, it may not detect the connected media.
When desired program found, you can begin to restore it. Be sure to look at the instructions that should be packed into the archive along with the recovery utility - perhaps the program has a special operating procedure. The general order of recovery looks like this:
You don’t need to do anything else: the program will correct errors on its own and return the flash drive to operational state. This completes the recovery of the Kingston flash drive; if the firmware of the controller did not help fix the problem, then the cause of incorrect operation should be looked for among hardware faults.
The SmartBuy flash drive is a common removable drive that many modern users use with great pleasure. The manufacturer has been successfully producing high-quality optical media for many years. In combination with an acceptable cost, attention to such a product increases several times.
Restoring the performance of a SmartBuy flash drive is within the power of a PC user.
In addition to an acceptable cost, such flash drives are accompanied by excellent quality, although this does not at all guarantee that unforeseen situations cannot occur during the operation of the media. SmartBuy flash drives can also fail, but you should not immediately say goodbye to them, sending them to a “well-deserved rest”.
You can try to do some manipulations to restore performance removable storage. In most cases, users manage to return the “life” to the drive, so it will be able to serve for several more years and technically justify its repeated “resurrection”.
If your digital drive has stopped showing “signs of life”, it means that circumstances have occurred that prevent its normal functioning. Sometimes you yourself can act as the culprit of such troubles. This happens when you completely ignore the rules for ejecting removable media. Also, such software failures can occur when the flash drive is actively used, subjecting it to constant recordings, readings and overwriting.
A flash drive may stop working if an unexpected guest in the form of a virus enters it and makes adjustments to its settings. Even a simple drop of a flash drive can provoke its premature failure, since in this case mechanical damage to a removable drive is often observed. It is especially hard to put up with when the MicroSD SmartBuy ceases to function, on which numerous unique photographs are stored.
However, you should not hang your nose, you can use the existing utilities that allow you to restore the SmartBuy flash drive, as well as successfully restore all the content that was previously stored on the drive.
Let's compile all of the above. Problems with the storage device in question may occur due to the following reasons:
- a large number of rewriting cycles;
- incorrect extraction;
- infection with virus software;
- overheat;
- software errors;
- static stress;
- malfunction of the controller;
- mechanical damage.
Based on established practice, most problems are characterized by a failure of the controller, which communicates between the flash drive itself and the computer interfaces.
It should be noted right away that, unfortunately, it is possible to hope for a successful restoration of the operability of this carrier only if its inoperability is caused by program issues, but not mechanical damage. Yes, of course, someone will say that even "mechanics" can be cured, but for this you need to have sufficient skills and specialized devices that not everyone has.
In addition, solving software errors also requires certain knowledge, skills in finding information and working with specialized software.
The essence of recovery is to flash the controller chip. The difficulty is that for each type of controllers, a specific utility is needed, errors in choosing which can completely level all attempts to restore the flash drive to working capacity and, more importantly, to extract the information stored on it.
So the first thing to do is try to save everything. possible files and only then resort to drastic measures.
Let's stop for now on restoring files and then we will return to the "revitalization" of the flash drive.
File recovery software
If your flash drive does not show signs of life, use any program to restore the SmartBuy MicroSD flash drive. There are several such programs, so you can choose the option that is most accessible for understanding.
You can try using the CardRecovery utility. It works great with SmartBuy removable media, and mobile phone memory cards are perfectly restored with it.
So, find the CardRecovery utility on the Internet, download it and install it. After that, run the program, in the "Drive letter" section, select the flash drive you are going to restore, and also restore the content that was recorded on it.
Be sure to specify which file format you would like to recover. The program will ask you to specify the folder where the recovered files will be saved. You can create such a folder in advance, and then specify the path to it in the program.
After such preliminary work, you can proceed to click on the "Next" button. It remains to wait for the program to complete, and then familiarize yourself with the list of all recovered files.
You can use some other similar program. For example, the modern and multifunctional utility PC Inspector Smart Recovery. She will ask the user to specify the drive where the files were stored, which are now important to restore. You can also use programs such as R-Studio, Easy Recovery and Flash Memory Toolkit.
Flash drive recovery
If you are faced with a slightly different task than just recovering lost files, then the resuscitation actions may be different. In particular, if you have a non-working SmartBuy flash drive, the DiskInternals Uneraser recovery program will help you successfully solve this problem as well.
ADVICE. By the way, some experienced users claim that SmartBuy flash drives have one unique characteristic. You can simply put a “failed” flash drive in a safe place and “forget” about it for several years.
After this decent amount of time, the removable drive may itself start functioning again, as if there was no system failure. Of course, this option is unlikely to suit anyone. No one wants to wait for several years, especially since there is no one hundred percent information when the period of such a “waiting” is exactly over. It is for this reason that it is easier to use utilities that immediately help restore removable media to working capacity.
Working with DiskInternals Uneraser is very easy. After launching it, a dialog box opens in which you should find the “Recover” parameter located in the top row of the menu. Further, the program will take care of all the necessary actions. You just have to sit and wait quietly. The program will not only return the flash drive to working capacity, but also offer to return important files for you that were deleted during recovery, since the process involves formatting.
Controller flashing
Restored files? Okay, let's get started with the controller.
Important point! The target/repairable flash drive must be somehow determined by the system. If you have inserted the media, and there is silence in response (the indicator does not light up, the system does not make a characteristic connection sound, "Disk Management" and file managers do not see the device, the BIOS ignores the connection), then this method will not work. Yes, and such an outcome of events is extremely deplorable, since physical intervention will be required here, with an appeal to the appropriate specialist.
Otherwise, if the flash drive is recognized by the system, but simply refuses to work, do the following:
IMPORTANT. Pay special attention to the correspondence of values, since an incorrectly selected one can lead to a complete inoperability of the device.
If in doubt, try additionally using the Flash Drive Information Extractor program, which will provide the most complete information about the selected device.
After compliance is confirmed, download the proposed software and follow the recommendations of the utility. In most cases, you only need to click on the "Restore" button.
Conclusion
Experienced users recommend not to wait for the flash drive to present such an unpleasant surprise, but to take preventive measures in a timely manner. In particular, with the active use of removable media, it is recommended to defragment and periodically backup.
It is also important to remember that you cannot download removable media completely, it is necessary that it always has free place. Of course, it is very important to correctly remove the media from the computer, do not drop it, and prevent other mechanical damage.
So, if you perform such simple preventive measures, removable media can last a fairly long time. If trouble happens and the flash drive stops working, you can use the utilities and professionally "breathe" new "vital" forces into it.
Do you have an inoperable USB flash drive or other media and you are wondering which program to choose for recovery?
We have reviewed the most popular utilities. Which of the above programs is right for you and will restore a flash drive with a 100% guarantee?
A one-of-a-kind program will help you pull out all the data Hetman Partition Recovery. It is loved by both beginners and pros for its convenience, speed and advanced data recovery algorithm. Your files will be found and copied even when the FS of the media is no longer available or it is damaged.
jet flash recovery tool- then proprietary utility, which has the maximum simple interface and support for Transcend, JetFlash and A-DATA drives. Management of only two buttons, obviously you will like it. Do not forget that the cleared data cannot be restored, so saving information from a USB flash drive will not be superfluous.
If you have a need to always have with you universal program, which can be conveniently applied to home computer, and beyond, we recommend D-Soft Flash Doctor, its platform does not require pre-installation, it starts instantly on any PC. Software suitable for repair, unlock,
restore the volume of the flash drive and its performance.
If you need to recover SD cards, we advise you to download F-Recovery SD, which has an effective set of simple options for working with damaged flash drives from digital cameras and others. portable devices. From the point of view of a professional approach to Flash drives, it will be interesting to use the Flash Memory Toolkit, the application contains a whole range of additional functionality that can test flash drives, in addition, the program works with any version of the OS from Microsoft.
Recognize the maximum number various types Flash Drive flash drives, among the above utilities, as well as quickly reanimate the performance of drives, can be formatted and restored by the USB Disk Storage Format Tool, which has a very clear and convenient interface. Repair program USB flash drives Disk Storage will be able to quickly recover data from damaged partitions hard drive even if flash drive firmware problems are detected.
If no flash drive recovery program has helped, we recommend checking the status of the memory controller using the ChipGenius utility. The program works with USB, micro sd, SD, SDHC and USB-Mpz players from Kingston manufacturers, Silicon power, Transcend, Adata, PQI. Further actions to correct errors, restore lost data are only advisable if
flash drive is defined in Chip Genius.
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. Transcend drives, Kingston, A-Data, and others 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 important information is stored on a flash drive or SD card, then before flashing and restoring the controller (and with it the drive’s performance), 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 flash drive or SD memory card is in the database online service but no, 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. It can be done with standard Windows tools 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.
