10/12/2021 Why Isnt My Usb Drive Working
A USB flash drive could be unrecognized due to various reasons. This article will show you how to solve the issue when the flash drive is blinking but not recognized, and help you recover data from the unrecognized drive with the professional data recovery software.
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It just wont detect the hard drive it was working on before. I'm pretty sure it has got something to do with me formatting my sd card. Well thats the only thing i've changed since this started to happen. I run the usb loader of my main screen. The backup discs work but the hard drive was far superior and would like to get that working again. Bootable USB not showing up in boot menu. This is because your USB drive is old USB 1.0 or 2.0, which is not supported by Windows 10. You can't boot from USB, even select the right boot option. In this case, the USB drive is likely to be damaged or corrupted.
Reasons why you cannot see files and folders in your pen drive. There are several reasons that might have led to the disappearance of your files and folders. Below are some of the known main reasons. Your pen drive might be damaged. Unfortunately, this happens relatively often. In other cases, the drive is usually inaccessible.
Have you ever found your USB device not recognized by computer? Clearly, this is annoying because it stops you from accessing all the files and folders saved on that USB device. Wouldn't you want to work this out so you can continue using the device and regain the data?
According to the investigation, USB flash drive not recognized/USB flash drive not showing up/USB flash drive not detected is a problem that bothers many users. So, today’s topic is how to get a USB flash drive to work & how to recover data from a USB flash drive.
You should recover data from USB quickly as soon as you regain access to them; otherwise, the files & folders may be gone for good at any moment.
The most important thing you need to remember is: stay calm when you find a USB device not showing up. Then, follow these steps to repair your drive.
A calm head is a decisive factor to help you quickly get out of the woods.
Fix USB Flash Drive Not Showing Up Windows 10USB Flash Drive Not Showing Up/Recognized/Detected
Is your USB flash drive not recognized by computer? There are many reasons that will make your computer unable to load the USB drive: USB becoming unallocated space, USB driver missing/ outdated/corrupted, etc. The following content shows you how to fix USB device not recognized error in Windows 10. After that, you’ll be told how to recover data from USB drive.
Method 1: Check USB Flash Drive in Disk Management
There are some cases in which the USB flash drive is detected but not showing in Windows Explorer. Thus, you should open Windows Disk Management to check whether your USB device appears.
How to change drive letter in Disk Management:
How to create a partition in Disk Management:
MiniTool Partition Wizard can also help you Change Drive Letter and Create Partition.
Well, what if you find your flash drive not showing up in disk management? Please read the following content to know how to get a computer to recognize your USB flash drive.
Method 2: Unplug the USB Drive
Please unplug your USB flash drive from the current USB port on your computer. Then, plug it into a different port and see what happen. Also, you can unplug the USB flash drive and plug it into another computer. If this method works, it means that the original USB port or computer is damaged. You should check it manually.
If this didn’t work, you should also try to unplug & re-plug the computer.
Unplugging computer is a simple solution to remove the power supply for both the computer and the motherboard. When the motherboard gets powered off, all hardware (including the USB ports) connected to the computer will be cut off. You should wait a few minutes to re-plug the power supply; then, the USB ports will be rebooted and the drivers will be reloaded, so your USB flash drive may be recognized.
Method 3: Disconnect & Re-connect USB Devices
Please do the following things:
Please keep reading if you still can’t see your USB flash drive.
Method 4: Enable USB Mass Storage Device
Method 5: Update the Device Driver
Method 6: Update Driver of Generic USB Hub
Method 7: Disable Power Save of USB Root Hub
Method 8: Connect to PC Directly
Don't use the hub.
Many people will buy a hub when the USB ports on their computer are not enough so they can connect more USB drives to the computer. However, if there are too many USB devices connected to the same PC, some of them won’t be recognized. In this case, you should remove the hub and connect your USB flash drive to your PC directly.
Provide sufficient power supply.
Besides, the hub may not supply sufficient power supply which will also result in USB flash drive not recognized on Windows 10 or other systems. Each USB device can only work normally under certain power supply conditions.
If the USB port provides insufficient power supply, these signs will appear:
You should provide a separate external power supply to the USB device.
Method 9: Use Hardware and Devices Troubleshooter
Method 10: Uninstall USB Devices
When a USB device is inserted into a computer for the first time, the system will prompt Found New Hardware and start to install the driver.
However, if the installation process is interrupted somehow, it will lead to failure in loading USB drive normally.
How to fix:
Method 11: Uninstall Hidden Devices
In Device Manager, not all the devices that were installed are shown by default. It only lists the frequently used and newly installed devices. Therefore, if the USB device has a conflict with a previously installed device which doesn’t show up in Device Manager, it can’t be detected. Therefore, you should uninstall the hidden devices in order to load your USB flash drive normally.
How to view hidden devices in Device Manager:
How to uninstall the hidden devices:
Method 12: Format Drive to FAT32![]()
If the USB flash drive is used on Xbox 360 when you find flash drive can't be recognized, there's a special reason why it is not detected by Xbox 360: the first partition of USB flash drive is not a FAT32 partition.
Since Xbox 360 could only recognize the USB flash drive under the condition that its first drive is formatted as FAT32, you must check the file system of USB flash drive to see whether it is FAT32. If not, please get the MiniTool Partition Wizard to help you.
Situation one: if the USB drive is formatted as NTFS, you need to convert NTFS to FAT32 by following steps:
Please note: the Convert NTFS to FAT is not available in the free edition.
Situation two: if it has another type of file system, please Format Partition to FAT32 by following steps:
Just high-five yourself if you solved your problem after reading the above content. However, if accidents happen while you're trying to fix the flash drive not detected problem, data saved in USB flash drive could easily be put in danger. So you must be as careful as you can.
FYI: If you can’t find your USB external hard drive after connecting it to the computer, you should get help from this page:
The problem – external hard drive not showing up/recognized/detected – can be fixed easily by following ways.
Other Possible Solutions
If the flash drive is not detected on any computer after trying the above methods, it may be damaged physically. Please buy a new USB flash drive to replace it.
Recover Data from USB Flash Drive Not RecognizedGet a Great Tool for USB Drive Data Recovery
The first thing you’re supposed to do is getting MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a piece of reliable data recovery software, and installing it properly on your computer that works fine. (The following content is based on Windows platform; if you’d like to recover data from USB flash drive not recognized on Mac, please resort to Stellar Data Recovery.)
Please don’t worry if you are a novice computer user; MiniTool Power Data Recovery can help you complete USB flash drive data recovery easily in time.
How to Recover Data from USB Flash Drive
You only need to complete the following 3 steps to retrieve lost files from a USB flash drive.
Why Are Usb Ports Not Working
Step 1: install the software and run it immediately to see the main interface. Here, This PC will be selected by default.
Step 2: select the USB flash drive from the right-hand panel. Then, perform a full scan on it by clicking on the Scan button in the lower right corner.
Step 3: browse the scan result to pick out all the data you want to recover by adding a check mark into the square box in front of them. Then, press the Save button to set a safe storage location for the files waiting to be recovered.
Related reading:
![]() Conclusion
In a word, the USB interface makes it a breeze to exchange data among different computers and devices. But there's a great chance that you may find yourself stuck in this situation: after connecting the USB flash drive to your PC or other devices through a USB port, you disappointedly find the USB flash drive is not being recognized.
This is not a rare problem; hundreds of thousands of users are facing or have met the same situation. Therefore, I summarized 12 common methods and other possible solutions for you to fix the issue, making your USB flash drive show up on the computer and become usable again.
USB Flash Drive Not Recognized FAQ
The most likely reason the USB flash drive doesn't display is the USB driver problem. If the driver is too outdated, damaged or missing, your device finds no way to communicate with the flash drive, so it can’t display the drive for you (the flash drive is not recognized).
A USB flash drive can be broken logically or physically. In the former case, you have a good chance of retrieving the lost data from the broken USB drive; while in the latter case, you have no choice but to take chance and send your drive to the professionals.
When the code 43 occurs on your PC, you should realize Windows is informed by the graphics device driver that the certain drive is not working properly. This may be caused by lots of reasons: such as damaged/missing driver and hardware problem.
How to Fix USB flash drive not working Windows 10/7?
Unplug the USB stick from the current port and computer, and try plugging into a different computer and/or USB port. If it works on the new USB port or computer, the USB port may be damaged or dead, or the computer itself may have a problem. And you can use EaseUS Data Recovery to recover data. Check if the port is clean, dust-free, and firm.
With a portable USB memory stick and flash drive, we can transfer work documents, school papers, multimedia files easily from PC or between USB drives in order to keep them as a backup or just be able to access the files everywhere. Only when the USB flash drive is not working, we find ourselves in trouble.
Symptoms of USB Flash Drive Not Working on Windows 10/7
When a USB stick is not working, the situations vary. The commonest cases are:
Why Isn't Flash Drive Working
Fix USB Flash Drive Not Working on Windows 10/7 Without Losing Data
The USB not working issues mentioned above are the most frequent ones people may encounter. To fix the specific USB errors, just click the link we left where the relevant solution has been provided.
In addition, it's necessary to learn the general troubleshooting methods in the following which show you what to do if USB flash drive is not working on Windows 10 or Windows 7.
First. Recover data when a USB flash drive is not working
Always give priority to your precious data in USB flash drive that is not working anymore. As long as Windows still detects the drive, you can download EaseUS hard drive recovery software to rescue your documents & large size multimedia files. Since there is the possibility of losing data during the fixes, it's highly recommended to recover data from your problematic USB in advance.
It only takes three steps to recover data from a USB flash drive that is not working with EaseUS recovery software.
Step 1. Select a location and start scanning.
Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, hover on the location(hard drive partition, external HDD, Card devices) where you lost data, then click 'Scan'.
Step 2. Preview and select the files.
Wait until the scanning completes. If you need to double-click the item to preview the file, then select the data you attempt to recover.
Step 3. Recover lost data.
Click 'Recover', choose a location to save the recovered data, then click 'OK'. You should store the data in another place instead of the original one.
Second. Fix a USB flash drive that is not working (in three ways)
There are three options available for you.
Why Isnt My Usb Drive Working Windows 10Method 1. Try a different USB port or PC
Inserting the USB stick into another USB port on your PC or connect it to another PC to exclude that the causes is not from the USB flash drive itself.
Method 2. Update USB driver
There's another chance that your USB flash drive has no problem, and the error is caused by an outdated driver in your PC.
My Usb Ports Are Not Working
Step 1. To check for a new driver, go to Computer, right click on your USB's icon and click on 'Properties'.
Step 2. Go to the Hardware tab and find 'General USB Flash Disk USB Device'. Select it and click the'Properties' button below.
Step 3. In the next pop-up, click the 'Change settings' button.
Step 4. When a new pop-up appears, go to the 'Driver' tab and click the 'Update Driver' button.
Step 5. Next, select the first option 'Search automatically for updated driver software'and follow the instructions.
Method 3. Check & repair USB drive partition error
When your USB flash drive is corrupted, damaged or there are bad sectors on it, your USB flash drive will not work properly for sure. If your USB flash drive is corrupted or damaged, you can follow the steps below to repair your disk using the free partition manager - EaseUS Partition Master. If there are bad sectors on your USB, learn how to repair bad sectors here.
Step 1. Insert your USB flash drive into your computer and launch EaseUS Partition Master. Right-click the partition on your storage device and choose 'Check File System'.
Step 2.In the new window, keep the option 'Try to fix the errors if found' selected and click 'Start'.
Step 3.Then EaseUS Partition Master will automatically check and repair the file system error on your USB. When it has done, click 'Finish' to end the whole process.
Method 4. Format the USB stick that is not working
Another effective way to fix the file system errors on your USB flash drive is to format it directly. By doing so, you assign a new file system to your storage device and it will be usable again. You can take the last measure to fix the USB flash drive that is not working problem by formatting the drive and use it as new.
Step 1. Open EaseUS Partition Master. Find your USB flash drive and right-click the partition you want to format and choose 'Format'.
Step 2.Set a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click 'OK'.
Step 3.Click 'OK' on the pop-up window to continue.
Step 4.Click the 'Execute Operation' button on the toolbar, then click 'Apply' to start formatting your USB drive.
The bottom line
When a USB flash drive is not working correctly, it could be quite annoying. However, if the device can still be detected by your computer, you should feel relieved since that means the files on it can be rescued with the help of data recovery software.
With the files kept safe somewhere else, you can continue fixing the not working error without worrying about any data loss. In addition to checking whether the problem is caused by other devices, it is useful to fix a USB that is not working by repairing the file system errors or formatting. I hope the issue with your USB can be successfully solved with the solutions provided here.
FAQs About USB Flash Drive Not Working
For those who have more questions about USB flash drive, you may follow and check answers below each question.
Usb Is Not Working1. How can I repair my USB flash drive?
Basically, there are three ways that you can apply to repair your USB flash drive.
Both Method 1 and Method 2 are able to repair errors on your disk from the command line. Formatting can reset your USB flash drive file system. Afterward, with EaseUS data recovery software, you can get your data back from a failed pen drive without losing files. You may refer to USB flash drive repair tool for help.
2. Why is my USB flash drive not showing up?
If a driver is missing, out of date, or corrupted, your computer won't be able to load or access to your drive. Thus, your computer may not be able to recognize it.
Usually, the reasons for USB flash drive not showing are: 1). USB driver issues; 2). Drive letter conflicts; 3). File system errors.
And you can try to update USB drivers, change USB drive letter or reset the file system to fix this issue. For more details, refer to USB Not Showing Up in Windows 10/8/7.
3. Why does my flash drive not work?
Be it similar to the USB flash drive not showing issue, when a USB flash drive contains errors, corrupted file system, outdated USB drivers, or even losing drive letter, it all may not work on a computer.
You can try any method as shown on this page in the main content to make your flash drive work again:
Usb Drive Not Working
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