[SOLVED] Laptop seem to break USB flash drives.

[Zebedi1]

Hello, a relative of mine has recently been having a problem where her laptop appears to break the memory sticks she uses on the laptop.

On three different occasions, she has used the laptop to place files on each of the memory sticks, removed them and later tried to reaccess them to find they no longer work. On her computer, you hear the chime as it plugs in but then when you click on the drive - you get the message 'please insert a disc into USB Drive'. The drive also does not work in other laptops.

First of all, can the files on these USB drives be recovered and how can I prevent the laptop from bricking other USB drives!?

Thanks

 

[wpgwpg]

This is a new one on me. I wonder if she might be removing the flash drives when they're still being written on. Does she know how to right-click on the drive letter from File Explorer and click EJECT? One other possibility would be if she's gotten some virus. In my experience once a flash drive has become unreadable, I've never been able to recover it. I've read posts from a few people who've encountered the problem, and were able to read it on another PC although this has never worked for me.

 

[Zebedi1]

This is a new one on me. I wonder if she might be removing the flash drives when they're still being written on. Does she know how to right-click on the drive letter from File Explorer and click EJECT? One other possibility would be if she's gotten some virus.

Thanks for your response, I had asked if she'd has removed the drive whilst writing data but she said she hadn't. I will show her how to properly eject the drive and will do a virus scan now.

 

[Zebedi1]

Ok I have done Norton and a Malware bytes quick scans and no malware has been detected. Any other suggestions? Thanns

 

[onespeedbiker]

So when she first plugs in the USB drives can she access them? This is worth looking at. https://technogyd.com/how-to-fix-a-corrupted-and-undetectable-usb-flash-drive-95/

 

[wpgwpg]

I read the article onespeedbiker posted a link to and found that it definitely helped me get back a 64 GB flash drive I accidentally started a backup to and canceled, leaving File Explorer helpless to do anything with it. All I had to do was to plug that flash drive in, then go to Disk Management (right-click START -> Disk Management) find that device, create a new partition and assign a drive letter, and voila, flash drive good as new!
So easy when you know what to do!

 

[onespeedbiker]

Great! Glad it worked out for you..