Revive a Dead USB Flash Drive?

Forums › Desktop computing › Revive a Dead USB Flash Drive?

1 | 2

richms

28191 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#725113 30-Nov-2012 12:43

I have had this when the spectacularly useless soldering inside one failed. The controller was there but no flash memory. It was all quite old large stuff that looked hand assembled by a half blind person so I just retouched all the joins on the chip and it came back.

Lifes too short to waste doing that on drives now, but this was back when an 8 gig was about $60 or so.

Richard rich.ms

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#725136 30-Nov-2012 13:33

Have you tried the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool? Great utility, has repaired USB Drives of mine in the past that were messed up with partitioning etc, windows would never fix them but this did. Worth a shot.

stevenz

2802 posts

Uber Geek

#725181 30-Nov-2012 15:17

I've seen this a few times, the "controller" on the stick is still fine, the flash-RAM has died. It's not uncommon, and unless you're very lucky and manage to get it to spark up, then it's toast. At best, you might be able to read data from it, forget writing anything back.

@KnightNZ

MurrayM

2456 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#725199 30-Nov-2012 15:55

tardtasticx: Have you tried the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool? Great utility, has repaired USB Drives of mine in the past that were messed up with partitioning etc, windows would never fix them but this did. Worth a shot.

Yup, tried that prog too, couldn't see the drive.

I've decided not to try any more, it was just that it's quite a nice 16GB drive, quite solid, and bought back when they were pretty pricy.

richms

28191 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#725204 30-Nov-2012 16:05

MurrayM:
I've decided not to try any more, it was just that it's quite a nice 16GB drive, quite solid, and bought back when they were pretty pricy.

Good thing they are so cheap now - you can get this classy looking one for under $20US - sure to get you some attention ;)

Richard rich.ms

MurrayM

2456 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#725211 30-Nov-2012 16:25

richms: Good thing they are so cheap now - you can get this classy looking one for under $20US - sure to get you some attention ;)

That one's not quite my style. I did see some nice little Android shaped ones selling on Trade Me but they were snapped up quick and a bit pricey considering they were only 4GB ones.

1 | 2