#DoItYourself - How to Fix a Corrupt USB Flash Drive

Hey guys, I just learned something new and I think it is worth sharing.

I do believe that, in our technology-driven world, most of us possess USB flash drives which we use for storage, data back-up and transfer of computer files. Those little devices that come in various sizes are sometimes so indispensable - i.e for some of us who are yet to place our trust in Cloud Storage services.

Due to our dependence on the functionality of our USB flash drives, we sometimes do not have a back up of our files that we have stored on them. This sets us up for great disappointment and frustration whenever our flash drives get corrupted by virus from using it on a virus infected PC, or failing to eject it safely. Once this happens, every file stored on our flash drive tends to be lost. This could be very annoying and agonizing when you think of the documents you have on it that you didn't store any place else. 

We see such error messages when we insert our corrupt flash drives in our PCs as indicated indicated below.

Well, I have been down that road more than twice, until I learned how to repair my corrupt flash drive and restore all "lost files".

I will walk you through the steps involved in repairing your corrupt flash drives.

Kindly note that skipping any step renders the process useless.

Here we go:

1- Scan affected flash drive with a fully updated and functional antivirus.

2- Identify name of drive on PC e.g: G, F, H, or J

3- Close all windows on PC, then bring up the run box on desktop by pressing the windows key + R.

4- Type in "cmd" in the run box and press enter to launch DOS Prompt.

 

5- On the command line, type the drive name with a colon sign e.g: "G:" Then press enter to get "G:\>"

6- Now type in this code: attrib *.* -r -s -h -a /s /d

Make sure you put space between each element in the code, e.g: attrib(space)*.*(space)-r(space)-s(space)-h(space)-a(space)/s(space)/d
Then press enter

7- The code should appear at the top of the DOS prompt window. Allow it to run until it disappears.

8- Now type "exit" and press enter to close DOS prompt window.

9- Check flash drive again.

If you followed the above steps thoroughly, you would have successfully repaired your corrupt flash drive and restored all lost files on it.

I hope this bit of info has been helpful to someone out there.

Ciao!

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