Using flash drives like pen drive, SD card, memory card, microSD card, external hard drives has become so common today. But, sometimes it happens that due to some unexpected reasons, your flash drives get corrupted or damaged. It becomes so frustrating situation then and people get confused and don’t get anything to do.
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Sims 2 super collection mac download. So, keeping in mind, I am here going to tell you how to fix a corrupted flash drive using CMD option. But, before we move on to the fixing solution, let us have a look at the real practical scenario of a user who has shared his experience of a corrupted flash drive.
Corrupted USB flash drive is an old age problem. Almost every computer user has faced this common problem. It doesn’t matter what you do, at some point of time, your computer will reject to read your USB drive. But, have you ever thought about how USB flash drive gets corrupted?
Well, there could be various causes that can make your USB flash drive corrupted or damaged. Some of the causes are mentioned below:
Don't give up and try to do some repair by yourself. Repair USB flash drive with First Aid if it doesn't show up. Go to Applications Utilities Disk Utility. Select USB flash drive on the left panel of Disk Utility, and click 'First Aid' at the top toolbar and click 'Run'.
Causes That Can Make Your USB Flash Drive Corrupted
5 Best Ways to Fix a USB Flash Drive That Won’t Show Up on a Mac. Let’s take a look at some of the causes of a flash drive not showing up on a Mac to determine if you can resolve your particular issue. Some of these fixes are very simple while others may involve performing data recovery on a corrupted or damaged drive. Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac. Disk Utility can fix certain disk problems—for example, multiple apps quit unexpectedly, a file is corrupted, an external device doesn’t work properly, or your computer won’t start up. Disk Utility can’t detect or repair all problems that a disk may have. Kingston USB drives are pre-formatted with a FAT32 file system for cross platform compatibility and for optimum performance. Formatting this drive with Windows, Mac or Linux may cause a performance decrease. The solution to obtain the best possible performance is to format the drive with the Kingston utility located below. All you need to do is carry around a single USB flash drive to be ready for situations the require you to diagnose, repair, or experiment with Mac OS X. One of the maintenance tools every Mac user should have available in case of emergency is a bootable copy of Mac OS X on a removable device.
- Virus or malware infection.
- System files corruption.
- Availability of bad sector.
- Connecting USB flash drive to multiple PCs or Mac.
- And so on…
It doesn’t matter whatever the causes are, there are few effective solutions that you can follow to know how to fix a corrupted flash drive.
And one of the popular methods to fix corrupted flash drive is by using CMD command.
So, here comes the solution section – how to repair a corrupted flash drive using CMD (command prompt)?
How To Fix Corrupted Flash Drive Using CMD (Command Prompt)
The CMD command which is also known as the command prompt is one of the high rated and successful solutions to repair corrupted, not working, damaged or unrecognized flash drive, pen drive, SD card or hard drive. It can also be used to repair corrupted external hard drive, SSD or HDD with ease.
Note: The solution works great on Windows 10/8/8.1/7 computer.
Below, follow the steps:
Step 1: Connect the corrupted flash drive (pen drive, memory stick, SD card or external hard drive) to your Windows computer.
Step 2: Click START and type CMD in the search bar and hit ENTER to open the command prompt. Alternatively, you can also open command prompt by pressing Windows Key + R followed by typing CMD in the RUN box that pops-up.
Step 3: Now in the command prompt box, type the following commands:
- Type diskpart and hit ENTER button. After this type list disk and hit ENTER button.
Step 4: Next, type select disk followed by the number of your disk and press ENTER button. After your disk gets selected, type clean and press ENTER button.
Step 5: Next type create partition primary and hit ENTER.
Step 6: After this type active and press ENTER followed by select partition 1.
Step 7: Finally, in the last step type the following command format fs=fat32 and hit ENTER button.
A screenshot of the process is given below.
After the completion of the process, you should find your USB drive working as good as new.
Alternatively, there is another step to fix/repair corrupted USB flash drive using CHKDSK command.
Repair Corrupted USB Flash Drive Using CHKDSK Command
Below follow the steps:
Step 1: Connect the corrupted flash drive to your PC.
Step 2: On your computer click Start and type CMD in the search bar and hit ENTER.
Step 3: A new command prompt window will get open.
Step 4: Now type the following command: chkdsk /X /f H: or chkdsk H: /f and hit ENTER. Here you need to replace the H: drive with your corrupted pen drive/SD card/USB drive.
Just wait for the process to get complete and then you should find your USB flash drive working as good as new. Also, with this, you will be able to know how to recover corrupted files from USB using CMD.
Expert Tip: Recover Lost Data From Corrupted USB Flash Drive
While performing the above solutions to fix corrupted USB drive, you may encounter data loss from your flash drive. So, after fixing a corrupted USB flash drive, it is important that you get all the data back from such a drive. So, here, you can try USB Flash Drive Recovery Tool to and know how to restore lost data from USB flash drives. The best thing about this flash drive recovery software is that it is available for both Windows and Mac computer.
With the help of this photo recovery software, one can:
- Easily get back inaccessible or lost pictures, videos and audio files from corrupted USB flash drive
- Recover digital media files from corrupted pen drive, SD card, memory stick, hard drive, camera card
- Also retrieve media files from unreadable, damaged, write-protected or unrecognized USB flash drive
- 100% read-only. Safe, secure and easy to use
* Free version of the program only scans and previews recoverable objects.
Steps To Recover Files From Corrupted USB Flash Drive
Best Thumb Drives For Mac
Step 1: Select Desired Location
Firstly, select the drive, external media or volume from which you want to recover deleted media files. After selecting, click on 'Scan'.
Step 2: Preview Recovered Media Files
Next, you can preview the recoverable media files after the scanning process is completed.
Step 3: Recover Media Files
Lastly, you can select the images, audio, video files you want to restore and click on 'Recover' option to save them at the location you want.
Bonus Tip: People Have Also Asked
How Can I Repair My USB Flash Drive?
Well, as mentioned above, you can follow the above command prompt (CMD) to repair corrupted USB flash drive, SD memory card, memory sticks.
On the other hand, if you know that your USB flash got corrupted due to virus infection, then run anti-virus tool to scan your corrupted SDcard, USB flash drive, etc
For detailed information please visit: Learn To Remove Virus From SD Card Without Formatting It(though it is mentioned SD card you can follow the same solution to remove virus from your virus-infected USB drive).
How Do I Remove Write Protection?
Many USB drives, memory stick, pen drive, SD card come with the feature of write-protection.
But sometimes it creates problems and when it creates a problem then users are not able to access files from write-protected USB flash drive, SD card, pen drive, etc.
How Do You Fix An Unrecognized USB?
Well, there are also many users out there, whose USB drive does not get detected or does not get recognized by the computer.
In such situation, they look for the solution on how to fix an unrecognized USB drive?
Well, if your USB drive, pen drive, SD card or external hard drive does not get recognized by your computer, then please follow the related links mentioned-below and find out the best solution for your problems and get fixed your unrecognized USB/SD card or pen drive.
Conclusion
I hope after you try the above solution, you will be easily able to fix corrupted USB flash drive and know-how to recover corrupted files from USB using CMD.
This tutorial will definitely not let you down, so just try the solution with the step by step instructions mentioned above. And, if you notice that the data you have saved in the flash drive has been lost the try USB Flash Drive Recovery Tool.
This tool will definitely help you restore lost data from USB flash drive in no time. So, all the very best guys.
Alex is an expert technical writer with 7+ years of experience. His in-depth knowledge about data recovery and fascination to explore new DIY tools & technologies have helped many. Alex has a great interest in photography and loves to share photography tips and tricks with others.
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Flash, or thumb, drives are a great way to transfer data between multiple computers. And every once in a while, this transfer method fails because flash drives are physical devices. They can be damaged or have data corrupted.
However, more often than not, the problem is not with the device itself, but how we use them. If the USB flash drive appears to be corrupted, e.g., when Mac cannot detect it or refuses to mount the drive, make sure that it was properly prepared.
macOS has a built-in tool that can help fix an unreadable USB flash drive on Mac: Disk Utility. After selecting the drive in the Disk Utility, click on the First Aid button to verify the device. However, before fixing the problem, check if the drive was correctlyformatted.
How To Fix Unreadable USB Flash Drive On Mac
Verify the USB drive was formatted for compatibility with macOS
There are two special cases when a USB drive may not be accessible, but not because it was corrupted. It is possible that the drive was not formatted in a disk format compatible with macOS. The two cases are:
- A new drive
- The drive that has been used in Windows or another operating system
Formatting the new drive
Most flash drives that you can purchase are preformatted in the Windows format (because there are more PC users than Mac users). In some cases, the drives were not formatted at all.
If the USB drive was not formatted, then the first time you plug it into the Mac, you will see the error message “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer” with the options to Initialize, Ignore and Reject.
If the drive was never used before (and does not contain any valuable data), then click on the Initialize button. This will open the Disk Utility app.
Another way to open the app is to use the Spotlight Search: press simultaneously Command and Space bar keys and type “Disk Utility” in the search bar. Hit Enter.
On the left side of the app, locate the flash drive. Since this is a brand new drive, it won’t have partitions like this:
Click on the Partition button in the top toolbar of the app.
You need to provide three pieces of information: Name, Format, and Size. Ignore the size and use the default.
![Repair thumb drive mac disk Repair thumb drive mac disk](https://www.easeus.com/images/en/screenshot/patition-manager/check-partition.png)
Type a meaningful description in the Name field (I usually avoid using special symbols, underscores, and spaces).
When it comes to the format, there are many choices, and the choice depends on how the flash drive is going to be used.
If you are absolutely sure that the flash drive will only be used with Mac computers, and there will never be a need to copy something to and from PC, then the best format is Mac OS Extended Journaled.
If you need encryption, then use the encrypted version of the format. However, do not use case-sensitive variants: I don’t know a single case when it could be useful.
In case there is a possibility, even a remote one, that the flash drive will be used with Windows computers, then pick ExFAT.
Here is a file format compatibility table from my previous post:
Formatting a drive used with PC
As you can see from the table above, Macs support most PC formats, while PC only supports its own ones. macOS fully supports FAT32 (appears as MS-DOS in the Disk Utility) and ExFAT.
The problem with MS-DOS format is that it was intended to store files less than 4GB. In other words, if the file is formatted as MS-DOS device, you will not be able to copy files larger than 4 GB on it.
Macs can also read from drives formatted as NTFS, but only in read-only mode. Macs cannot delete or modify the file contents on NTFS drives.
Unfortunately, if the drive was already formatted with NFTS, the only way to reformat for read/write Mac compatibility is first to save the contents of the drive on another computer or disk, reformat to ExFAT, and then copy the files back to drive.
Verify the USB drive was mounted in Mac
One issue that beginner users often face is when the USB drive won’t mount on Mac.
To find out if the drive was mounted, again, use the Disk Utility. Sometimes, the drive will appear in the list of volumes (or disks) on the left side of the app but does not appear in the Finder.
In this case, select the drive and then click on the Mount button in the toolbar.
If the drive was mounted, but you can’t see it on the Desktop, then try another trick. Right-click on the drive in the Disk Utility and choose the “Open in Finder” option from the drop-down menu.
Run First Aid from Disk Utility app
As mentioned above, macOS has a built-in tool to check and repair failed devices. In the Disk Utility app, select the problem drive and then click on the First Aid button.
The tool will pop up a message box.
Click on the Run button. First, the First Aid module will check if the device has any problems. If any errors found, it will ask for permission to fix the errors.
Reset PRAM on Mac
There is a universal solution for the most problems with any Mac. It’s called resetting PRAM (Parameter RAM).
The PRAM contains some initialization parameters related to hardware cached in the special memory. Sometimes, this memory gets corrupted and may cause all kinds of problems with sound, video, and USB devices. Mac update to high sierra.
Format Thumb Drive Mac
All you need is to shut down Mac first. Then turn it on and immediately hold four keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. Release the keys once the Apple logo appears on the screen.
Here are the detailed instructions from Apple.
Try 3rd party drive recovery apps
If nothing from above helped with the issue, one way to try to solve the problem is to use 3rd party apps.
I cannot recommend any apps, but if you decide to go with this route, I have some suggestions on how to make sure that the app is safe.
I always suggest using apps downloaded from the Mac App Store.
However, the problem is that the apps from the App Store usually have restrictions when it comes to direct access to the hardware (kind of thing you need when the device is failing).
So, it is most likely that the apps that can recover USB drives have to be downloaded directly from the developer site, which is not safe.
To make sure that the app does not contain any malware or adware, upload the file to Virus Total web site. This site will run multiple antivirus scanners, and if it does not find anything, then the downloaded software is most likely clean.
Send the drive to Mac repair shop
It happens very rarely so that the USB flash drive is actually having problems, e.g., bad sectors. The issue was prevalent with older mechanical devices that had moving parts, and they used to get worn out. Nowadays, it most likely that the connector could break or deform.
I have a 10-year old thumb drive, which is hard to unplug. When I try to pull it out from the USB port, I often pull the outer case, but the connector stays inside the port.
But, if you exhausted all DIY methods, it is probably a time to ask help from a specialist. I know a number of Mac repair shops that specialize in data recovery. They have a number of expensive tools they can run and diagnose the disk problems.
In conclusion, I wanted to note that quality matters when purchasing USB flash drives.
Anyone who thinks they found a good deal on Amazon – a thumb drive with a lot of space under $10-$20 with thousands of five-star reviews, but the company name is unknown or hard to pronounce, is risking to lose their data one day.
Repair Thumb Drive Partition
The quality devices may cost a little extra, but they have two distinct advantages:
- They are less likely to fail
- They are 3-4 times faster than no-name brands
Reformat Thumb Drive Mac
If you are looking for suggestions, check my page with the best USB flash drives (type A and C):
Thumb Drive To Computer
Photo credit: ©canva.com/Svetlana Lukienko