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I have SanDisk mini USB 3.0 16 GB drive. I used it last time a few months ago and it was working alright. Today when I plugged the USB drive into the socket, the drive did not get detected. I have Windows 10 on my Dell laptop. The USB drive does not show on File Explorer, under Device Manager, or under Disk Management.

I did some preliminary tests by testing my other USB drives in the same socket and those drives are working. I also plugged the SanDisk drive into other laptops and an HP Chromebook and the drive did not get detected on those PCs either. I restarted the computer multiple times but no luck so far.

Can anyone please suggest some troubleshooting methods? Unfortunately, all my visa documents are in that flash drive and I am particularly scared to lose the data.

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  • The contacts might be dirty or oxydized. Clean the contacts with a small brush or by blowing air through it. Sometimes, the metal of the contacts get oxydized: repeated insertion and removal (20-30 times) with PC turned off can help remove the oxydized surface. Or scratch the contacts carefully with a small screwdriver or something. If it doen't help, go for professional recovery.
    – 1NN
    Commented Apr 11, 2022 at 10:40
  • @1NN Thank you for some tips. I tried blowing air and repeated insertion-removal about 30-40 times but no luck so far.
    – learner57
    Commented Apr 11, 2022 at 17:01
  • @1NN one thing I want to add though... this sandisk drive is getting hot pretty fast ... maybe because it's a mini drive but within 2-3 mins it's getting burning hot.
    – learner57
    Commented Apr 11, 2022 at 17:02
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    in your place, at this point i'd get a professional data recovery without doing any further experiments
    – 1NN
    Commented Apr 11, 2022 at 18:58
  • Does the drive show up in diskpart? open cmd and type diskpart if the program has loaded type list disk
    – kevinSpaceyIsKeyserSöze
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 7:46

2 Answers 2

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You'll need professional data recovery to save it.

The fact that the drive doesn't appear in Device Manager gives a glimpse of hope that it's a simple electrical connection issue, maybe solvable by soldering a new connector. That's the optimistic scenario with a relatively cheap fix.

The other scenario is that at least the USB controller is dead and advanced data recovery will be necessary. Unfortunately it won't be cheap.

The lessons to learn here are:

  1. Backups are important. Backups of important documents are very important.
  2. Flash drives and SD cards are notoriously unreliable.
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  • Thank you for giving me a direction. Now when I am plugging in the drive, it says "USB device not recognized. The last USB device you connected to this computer malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it"
    – learner57
    Commented Apr 11, 2022 at 10:11
  • @learner57 I don't think that sheds any more light at the issue, unfortunately. It could be a bad electrical connection or a malfunctioning controller.
    – gronostaj
    Commented Apr 11, 2022 at 10:43
  • An often quoted corollary of your first lesson to learn: ”Data without a [working] back-up is, by definition, unimportant.”
    – David Foerster
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 10:34
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I had one that got very hot too (while writing a linux ISO onto it). That was also a SanDisk (Ultra Dual I think, anyway with both micro USB and USB-A). I never managed to read/write it again, but I never tried very hard.

However small a drive is, it shouldn't get hot - the control chip is the same and there's no heatsink. The current draw should be less than 100mA so less than 0.5W. A different drive I have here draws 58mA (I have a USB lead with an ammeter wired into it). That's 290mW which would be faintly warm at most in something that size.

Heat means at least the power lines are making contact. I suspect that rather than a broken connection there's a short circuit - either damage or debris inside. Your comment that Windows knows something has been plugged in but not what it is would tend to reinforce that idea. This may already have destroyed the controller chip.

It's probably already ruined, and as you have important documents on there you should probably be looking at an expensive recovery service. But if you want to try something yourself, open it up and clean it.

I would be curious to try and definitely don't recommend swapping the actual flash IC into an identical drive. That would be hard but doable with facilities I can borrow in work, but not with a typical hobbyist soldering setup.

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  • I don't think swapping the IC would work. The controller must store its logical sector mapping somewhere and I don't think that goes to the raw flash.
    – gronostaj
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 11:13
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    @gronostaj: Where else would it go? You need persistent storage. The whole reason why flash storage is organized as a controller chip plus raw flash chips is because the chip process to make controllers is different from the process used to make flash. You can't really add persistent storage to logic chips. Even DRAM is hard to add to logic.
    – MSalters
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 11:28
  • Just as an aside, and I also really don't recommend the OP tries this, but swapping the IC is perfectly possible with a simple hot-air rework station and associated consumables. Not sure if that counts as 'typical hobbyist soldering setup', but with the slow death of through-hole they're getting more common.
    – 2e0byo
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 12:11
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    @2e0byo that's what I could borrow in work (in fact I suspect I wouldn't have to do it myself, if I asked nicely; there are people currently being trained on that kind of rework). Most long-term EEs I know would have the kit at home but I'm a physicist and tinkerer with limited surface-mount capabilities at home. That may explain my interest in the experiment. I'm also slightly behind the times.
    – Chris H
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 12:41
  • I am connecting with a professional data recovery service. I cannot risk opening the drive by my own. I discussed this issue with a colleague and he said that as the usb drive is a mini drive, nobody will be able to open and fix it ....not sure how right/wrong he is ....
    – learner57
    Commented Apr 13, 2022 at 3:49

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