4 Free Ways to Fix USB Flash Drive not Recognized/Detected Error

USB flash drive is not showing up in MY Computer

What's the difference bewteen pen drive not showing up under 'This Computer' and 'Disk Management' in Windows 10/8/8.1/7/XP?

-Not showing up under 'This PC'

When your pen stick is not detected under 'This Computer', it may represents that your thumb drive is of either logical damage or physical damage depending on whether it can be detected under 'Disk Management' or driver update.

-Not showing up under 'Disk Management'

It could be the level two damage and sometimes physical damage may also occur when updating usb driver does not work in case then the device could be somehow cannot be repaired under this case.

Why pen drive cannot be recognized/detected

There should be various kinds of possible reasons that the thumb drive is not recognized in your computer and some of them may come from the following

• unplug usb drive without safe removal - can be repaired
• sudden power surge - can be repaired
• virus attack - can be repaired
• usb drive physical damage - can not be repaired
• other unknown damage

4 Free ways to fix pen drive not detected error

Usually there some possible ways that you may try to determine whether it is the problem of the usb drive, or the computer usb socket, or the usb cable if it was an external usb disk.

Once you have restored files with the above program, or if you have no important data on the usb flash drive, you may continue with the following solutions to fix the damaged pen drive.

Solution 1: Uninstall the pen drive under Device Manager and then Scan new device

Step 1: Open device manager with cmd by typing devmgmt.msc

Open device manager

Step 2: Navigate to Disk drives and then right click your usb drive and then uninstall it

uninstall usb drive

Step 3: Connect your usb to PC again

reconnect usb drive

Step 4: and then Scan for hardware changes under 'Action'

scan hardware changes

Another way: Update Driver under Device Manager

It is under the same function of Device Manager that you may follow the following steps to get the usb driver updated to fix the not detected problem.

1 – Open the Run command and Type devmgmt.msc and click OK to open the Device Manager tab. (You may find the step in the above photo)

2 – Go to the Universal Serial Bus Controller drop-down

3 – Select Generic USB Hub from the dropdown and right click on it

4 – Select the Update Driver Software option

This step will update your driver software and fix the Flash Drive not recognized error.

If the above solutions does not work for you, try the following.

Solution 2: Assign new drive letter for your usb drive if it cannot be recognized

There are two ways that you can assign a new drive letter for the pen drive if it is damaged.

Way 1: assign new drive letter with Windows disk management.

Step 1: right click 'This Computer' and then go to 'Computer Management', and then right click the usb drive shows here, go to option 'Change drive lettter and paths'

Open disk management

Step 2: go to change

Change drive letter and paths

Step 3: assign a new drive letter for your pen drive.

assign a new drive letter

Way 2 : Assign new drive letter with freeware Partition Resizer

This is a 100% freeware called IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free that can not only help with usb drive letter change but also can help manage disk partitions like resize partition, backup disk partition, convert file system, repair bad blocks and more.

Download Partition Resizer Free

Step 1: Download the freeware and install it on your PC, connect your usb pen drive to PC

change drive letter with freeware

Step 2: Right click the drive that shows in Partition Resizer and then go to option 'Change drive letter'

Follow the software and apply changes to get the drive letter changed.

Solution 3: Format usb flash drive to fix the not recognized error.

There are 3 free ways to format a flash drive under this case.

Way 1: Format the usb drive with Disk Management

Format the usb drive under disk management

Way 2: Format not recognized pen drive with cmd

Run CMD by pressing “Win+R” and then type“format l: /fs:ntfs”(l is the drive letter of your raw pen drive)

Format the not detected usb drive with cmd

Way 3: Format not recognized pen drive with freeware partition resizer

Actually there are serveral tools that could do the job and here we just show you how to format usb with freeware Partition Resizer.

Firstly, you need to download it and then install it on your PC, and then connect your usb drive to PC, and launch Partition Resizer after installation.

Right click the pen drive on the interface of Partition Resizer, and go to availale option 'Format Partition'.

Format the not detected usb drive with freeware

Physical damaged usb drive that cannot be detected anywhere

If the above methods all did not work for your damaged usb, then it is probably of physical damage that you have two choice under such situation.

Solution 1: Turn to a local data recovery service center for help which may take over 200USD-2000USD since the local recovery service is of high price.

If the inside data is really that important, then you may only pay for high price.

Solution 2: Buy a new pen drive from local digital shop or online shops

Here are a list of online shops that you may choose

https://www.amazon.co.uk/usb-flash-drives/b?ie=UTF8&node=430554031

www.flashbay.co.uk

Or other digital websites like bestbuy.com; tigerdirect.com...

The worst moment could be the time when your pen drive is not working on any device while you have critical data inside of it. Then you may take the courage to lose it.

Pen drive is not recognized on Mac

What if your mac just can not recognize the flash drive? What do you do if your usb device is not detected on MacOS Mojave/High Sierra?

Method 1: Check and show mounted drives

Connect the USB flash drive to Mac and then

1 – Go to Finder Preferences and click on General

2 – Select “External disks” from the pop-up box

Then the pen drive shall be mounted and recognized.

Mount external drive mac

Method 2: Connect the USB Flash Drive Manually

In order to perform this first select a port to connect the USB flash drive.

1 – Go to Applications and click on Utilities

2 – Select “Ask me What to do” from the Devices pop-up box

3 – Go to Devices and click External Devices.

Usually this usb not showing up problem on MAC can be fixed by this step, if not, then try the following.

Method 3: PRAM Fix

To perform this troubleshooting you have to return the PRAM.

1 – Shut down the Mac

2 – Press the Power button and hold Command + Option along with P+R while the system starts.

3 – As the system starts boot release the buttons.

Method 4: Format Drive to make it work on MAC OS

This method solves the issue after the drive is formatted and reconnected to the system. In order to do that, here are the steps;

1 – Press Command + Spacebar and connect the flash drive.

2 – Open Application and click on Disk Utility  Option

3 – Select the Flash Drive on the left pane.

4 – Click on Erase button to complete the process

Method 5: Try the USB on another PC to make it work

If the above methods does not work either, you may find another computer for help to check whether the same problem occurred. If yes, then most probably the usb device is of physical damage that can hardly be repaired.

Under this case, you may buy a new one, or ask local recovery center for help.

For more help on making a usb work on a MC, you may see the following page

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/how-open-hard-drive-not-mounting-mac-3613422/

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