USB Drive Not Recognized: Fix Guide and Data Recovery Method

According to the investigation, the USB drive not recognized, not showing up, or not working is a problem that plagues many users. So, today’s topic is how to get a USB flash drive to work & how to recover data from USB flash drive. My advice is to recover data from USB quickly when you regain access to them; otherwise, the files & folders may be gone for good at any moment. After all, you do care more about the data than the USB device itself, right?

The most important thing you need to remember is: to stay calm when you find a pen drive not showing up. Believe it or not, you still have a chance to complete USB data recovery and repair the USB flash drive. And a cool head is the decisive factor to make you quickly get out of the woods.

How to Recover Data from Unrecognized USB Drive

Get A Great Tool for Pen Drive Data Recovery

Different from internal hard drive data recovery, USB drive data recovery requires assistance from professional data recovery software. You should select a reliable and functional data recovery software, like MiniTool Power Data Recovery.

This free file recovery software is able to scan and recover files from various data storage devices, including USB drives, SD cards, memory sticks, CDs, and other media that can be detected by Windows. It can recover types of files that are lost in diverse situations, such as partition loss, device unrecognized, disk formatting, and more.

MiniTool has developed several editions for this software to tackle different data loss tasks with corresponding technic supports. You can get the free edition to see if you can successfully recover data from USB drive when it is not recognized, not showing up, or even not working.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

It should be addressed that MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free only has 1GB of free data recovery capacity. If you want to recover files of more than 1GB from the USB drive, you should choose a premium edition to break the limit.

Take Measures to Recover Data from USB Flash Drive

You should first connect the USB drive to your computer and ensure this device is detected by your computer. To check if your computer can find this USB drive, you can open Disk Management by pressing Win + X and selecting Disk Management to open the window. If the USB drive appears in the disk list, the software can show the USB drive as well.

If the USB drive doesn’t show up in Disk Management, you can remove the drive and re-connect the drive via another USB port or plug it into another computer to see if the problem happens to the USB port or the USB drive itself.

Afterward, you can follow the next steps to start the USB data recovery process.

Step 1. Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery by clicking the download button below. Double-click on the software and choose the partition of the USB drive to scan. If there are several partitions on your USB drive, you can change to the Devices tab to scan the entire USB drive.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2. In order to find all the wanted files, you are not advised to stop the scan process in the midway. When the scan process is completed, you can look through the file list to locate the files you want to restore with the Filter, Type, and Search features. The former two functions allow you to check files under some conditions, such as file type, file size, etc. The Search feature enables you to search for a specific file with its file name.

After the preliminary filter, you preview files by double-clicking on them or selecting them and clicking the Preview button at the top toolbar. This feature helps to improve the data recovery accuracy and efficiency. Additionally, as we mentioned above, the free edition can only restore 1GB of files for free; thus, this function works significantly.

Step 3. Tick all the files you need and click Save. A small window will show up where you need to choose a destination for the restored files. The chosen file path should be different from the original one, which can avoid data overwriting.

After rescuing files from the USB drive that can not be recognized, you can keep reading to learn some methods to fix the USB error.

How to Fix USB Flash Drive Not Detected

A great number of USB flash drive users are wondering how could their drive not detected by a computer or other equipment all of a sudden. They need to know the exact causes so that the device not recognized problem can be solved and the device itself can be used again.

Here are several common causes of the thumb drive not showing up issue and comes with corresponding solutions for each case. Please keep reading to learn the troubleshoots on your case.

#1. Unconventional flash memory chip and technology.

Manufacturers of the newly installed USB device used unconventional flash memory chips and technology to make the flash drive: this situation can be mainly divided into two types.

a). in order to protect their own chip technology, some large companies choose to use non-standard chips or encrypt data read and write mechanisms; or they just decide not to share chip parameters with others, stopping USB driver writers from writing corresponding drivers.
b). some small companies or illegal small workshops create their USB device with inferior-quality fittings.

Solution:
Go to the manufacturer’s official website to download the latest USB driver package or find the original CD driver.

#2. USB driver is not installed properly.

This is considered one of the most widespread failures that occurred on a USB flash drive device. After the USB device is inserted into a computer, the system will prompt “Found New Hardware” and start to install the driver. However, if you cancel the installation process for feels risky or troublesome, it will lead to failure in loading the USB drive normally. Thus, this USB flash drive can’t be recognized by the system.

Solution:
Open Windows Device Manager > refresh the corresponding interface to see whether the USB drive will be reloaded and reinstalled or just find the USB device with a question mark > right-click to uninstall it > reconnect the USB device to the computer to install.

#3. USB device has no drive letter or volume.

Sometimes, the USB drive is not showing up in File Explorer because the device has no drive letter or no volume. If this is the cause, you can easily fix the problem via Disk Management. Here is how to do it.

Step 1. Press Win + X and choose Disk Management from the WinX menu.

Step 2. You can find the USB drive to check whether the drive letter is properly assigned or the USB partition exists.

• Right-click on the USB partition and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. In the following window, click Add and choose a drive letter from the dropdown list. Click OK to save the change.
• Right-click on the USB partition and select New Simple Volume. Then, follow the on-screen introductions to complete the basic settings of the volume.

#4. The power supply of the USB port is not sufficient.

Each USB device can only work normally under certain power supply conditions. If the USB port provides insufficient power supply, those signs will appear – the USB indicator does not flash or its state is abnormal; the system fails to boot as usual after the USB device is connected to the computer; the content in the USB device can’t be accessed or the access speed is much slower than before.

If you connect the USB drive via a USB hub, try to plug the USB drive into your computer directly to see if the USB can be accessed properly.  If not, work with the following steps to check whether your computer has enabled the power save settings.

Step 1. Right-click on the Windows icon and choose the Device Manager.

Step 2. Expand the Universal Serial Bus controllers option.

Step 3. Right-click on the USB Root Hub and choose Properties.

Step 4. Change to the Power Management tab and uncheck the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power option.

Step 5. Click OK to save the change.

#5. USB Drive has logical errors.

If your USB drive not recognized problem still exists after completing the above solutions, the problem might be triggered by the USB drive errors. Those logical errors can be detected and resolved by running the Windows Hardware and Devices troubleshooter. Work with the next steps to see if this helps to fix the problem.

Step 1. Press Win + R to open the Run window.

Step 2. Type cmd into the dialog and press Shift + Ctrl + Enter to open Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 3. Type msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic and hit Enter to open the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.

Step 4. Click Next to run the troubleshooter and wait for the utility to complete the detection.

You can follow the on-screen instructions to fix the found errors.

#6. USB Drive is corrupted.

Several factors can lead the USB drive to be corrupted, such as improper removal, virus attacks, etc. In this case, your computer may fail to identify the USB drive properly when you plug it in, making the USB drive unrecognized. Try to format this device to let the USB become usable. However, formatting will erase all your files on the USB drive. You should recover data from USB flash drive first with the help of MiniTool Power Data Recovery.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

After rescuing files, you can format the USB drive via File Explorer, Disk Management, or third-party software based on your case.

• If the USB drive appears in File Explorer, you can right-click on the USB drive > choose Format > modify the basic settings > click Start to start the quick format.
• If the USB drive doesn’t show up in File Explorer but in Disk Management, right-click on the USB drive > choose Format > set the volume label and file system > click OK.
• It is possible that you are unable to format the USB drive in the above two approaches. The third-party tool is required in this case. MiniTool Partition Wizard is a comprehensive partition manager that supports resizing partitions, formatting partitions, wiping partitions, and more. You can get this software to format the USB drive easily.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

#7. USB device is damaged physically.

Convenient as a USB flash drive is, it is often damaged by frequent plug-in and out, magnetic interference, high temperature, and other factors. Thus, a pen drive not working at all is not a rare thing.

Solution:
If your USB device encounters hardware failure, you can check the broken component and replace it with a new one or turn to professional recovery companies to recover data from it.

Summary

In a word, a USB interface makes it a breeze to exchange data among different computers and devices. As far as I know, either USB flash drives or external hard drives are easy to use. But there’s a great chance that you may find yourself stuck in this situation: after connecting the USB flash drive to a Windows PC or another device through a USB port, you disappointedly discover the problem – the USB flash drive can’t be recognized.

As I have mentioned, the USB drive not recognized problem is not rare; hundreds of thousands of users are facing or have met the same situation. Of course, all of them want to fix it easily and safely, but it turns out that more than half of them failed. That is why I’m writing this – to help you recover data from USB drive and fix the USB device not recognized error.

Reading here, it’s easy to find out that MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a powerful and clean recovery tool to get back all lost data from USB. It is easy to use: it only takes 3 easy steps to successfully regain your data no matter whether they’re saved in a removable disk like a USB flash drive or the computer’s internal hard drive.

Besides, you must hurry up to take the corresponding measures to fix the pen drive not recognized problem yourself, in order to make it usable again.