How to Repair a Flash Drive

Flash memory devices are essentially miniature hard drives that allow you to keep your data in a portable location. Flash drives do store and transfer their data in different ways than standard hard drives, which can occasionally lead to problems. If you use your flash drive incorrectly, or simply use it on a regular basis over an extended length of time, the data can become corrupted. There are several different ways you can try to repair the drive and recover the corrupted files.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Flash recovery software

1. Step 1

   Plug the flash memory drive into an open USB port on your computer. Open the Start menu and select "My Computer."

2. Step 2

   Right-click the driver letter for your flash memory drive. Click "Properties." Navigate to the "Tools" tab.

3. Step 3

   Click "Check Now" underneath the "Error Checking" heading. Click the "Automatically Fix File System Errors" and "Scan For and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors" check boxes. Click "Start."

4. Step 4

   Wait for the error-checking process to finish running. Try opening or modifying one of the files on the drive to find out if the problem was fixed.

5. Step 5

   Navigate to one of the Resources links if the data on the drive is still corrupted. Download and install a flash drive repair utility such as "BadCopy Pro," "Recover My Files," or "Virtual Lab Data Recovery."

6. Step 6

   Open the repair utility. Click "Recover" or the equivalent option for the utility you downloaded. Select "Browse" and then choose the flash memory drive.

7. Step 7

   Click "Output" or the equivalent option. Select the folder where you want the recovered data to be saved. Click "Start."

8. Step 8

   Try accessing the data on the flash memory drive again. Return to the "My Computer" window if the data is still corrupted. Right-click the drive letter again and choose "Format."

9. Step 9

   Click "Start" to reformat the flash drive.