Corrupt USB drive? Try these 3 fixes before you wipe it

So you’re dealing with a corrupt USB flash drive. You’ve lost your files; you can’t access them, or when you plug the drive into your PC it’s not even recognized. Understandably you’d be forgiven for pulling your hair out in frustration. But those files need not be lost. Here I give you tips to gain access to your drive and hopefully get your files back.

There are a number of telltale signs that can indicate some data or software corruption on a flash drive. The first is if you plug in your drive and you can’t open any of the files.

Additionally, there could be some files missing when you know you didn’t delete them.

Another sign is if you plug in a drive and there’s absolutely no response at all. Or you could have a corrupt USB drive if you’re trying to copy or paste something to the drive and it’s not working or it says you need to format the drive for it to work.

All of these signs suggest that something is going wrong with the drive and warrants you trying to recover the data. So, what should you do?

Data recovery software is one of the most effective ways of recovering your data. It can access the data on your drive without any help from Windows Explorer or a disk manager.

There are lots of data recovery apps out there. But the data recovery software I recommend you use is called Disk Drill, which has some of the most advanced recovery algorithms available. Here’s how to use it:

Note: Don’t choose the USB drive as the save location for the files, otherwise you risk overwriting them.

If you plug in the drive and it’s recognized but not in Windows Explorer, it may be that you need to reset some of the metadata in the drive to get it to be read again. You can try assigning a different drive letter to the drive to make it readable again. Here’s how to do that:

The USB drivers are like a communication pathway between the operating system and the device. It’s like an extension of the software that if it gets interrupted means the drive won’t be readable. Here’s how to reinstall the drivers to reconnect that communication pathway:

Hopefully one of those three methods has made your drive readable and allowed you to save your precious files. The first method is the easiest, so try that one first. That’s the best you can do with a corrupted USB drive. But to prevent corruption in the future remember to always remove your USB drive from your PC properly by clicking on the eject drive icon in the System Tray rather than removing it while it’s busy.

You should also have a good pre-emptive backup plan for all of your drives. See our roundups of the best Windows backup software and best online backup services for recommendations.