USB Flash Drive Repair/Data Recovery

**_Cathy_** · April 24th, 2025 08:51 AM

I can't believe this. My USB got corrupted ata. It's dead, not even read by my laptop. I tried it using another laptop, wala talaga. My friend said could be like a wire or power or something that was damaged? I have all my accounting there so I am desperate to retrieve the files. What's funny is I was planning on backing it up when this happened. And yes, I am stupid for keeping my files on a USB lang.

**dr. d** · April 24th, 2025 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by _Cathy_

I can't believe this. My USB got corrupted ata. It's dead, not even read by my laptop. I tried it using another laptop, wala talaga. My friend said could be like a wire or power or something that was damaged? I have all my accounting there so I am desperate to retrieve the files. What's funny is I was planning on backing it up when this happened. And yes, I am stupid for keeping my files on a USB lang.

that also happened to me. after some time of non-use, mine couldn't be read.
it would appear, flashdrives do have a lifetime?

**_Cathy_** · April 24th, 2025 09:44 AM

I am desperate to retrieve the files

That's 2+ yrs of accounting and I don't think I could backtrack it

**oj88** · April 24th, 2025 11:50 AM

Check FB Marketplace for data recovery services.

**_Cathy_** · April 24th, 2025 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by oj88

Check FB Marketplace for data recovery services.

Thanks, chatted with an FB marketplace guy. Looks like a hardware issue nga. It's not detected at all, dati kasi when I insert my USB flash drive umiilaw. I used different ports and even a different laptop na.

**Walter** · April 24th, 2025 01:30 PM

Try to press and hold the USB stick while reading ... or wiggle a little ...

**oj88** · April 24th, 2025 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by _Cathy_

Thanks, chatted with an FB marketplace guy. Looks like a hardware issue nga. It's not detected at all, dati kasi when I insert my USB flash drive umiilaw. I used different ports and even a different laptop na.

From the sound of it, I don't think it's getting power. It may very well be just a cold solder on any of the power pins (Vcc or Gnd). If that's the case, it's a simple fix.

I would not try fumbling with it any further. Continued USB insertions/removals might really mess up the flash memory.

**LOLZ** · April 24th, 2025 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by dr. d

that also happened to me. after some time of non-use, mine couldn't be read.
it would appear, flashdrives do have a lifetime?

Good working flash-based drives can lose their contents if they remain unpowered/unused for too long (Usually manufacturers claim ten years). Usually their overall lifetime though is limited by the number of writes done to the device and why it'd best to leave some space for the drive to be able to wear itself evenly by doing new writes to that empty space and just marking overwritten parts of the data already on the drive as deleted instead of actually deleting and rewriting the data on the same set of blocks it was previously in.(many if not all devices nowadays already do this by reserving a chunk of your storage).

**oj88** · April 24th, 2025 09:46 PM

It doesn't seem like the Cathy wasn't using the drive, so failure from non-use is likely not the cause.

But the fact that even the LED doesn't light up makes it seem like it's a power supply fault. If that's addressed, hopefully the drive should immediately work again. I've had thumbdrives that failed on me that still powers up, but is no longer detected by the host computer.