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My USB stick stopped working. When plugged into the USB port there will be a windows sound, stick will show up for a couple of seconds in the explorer (but cannot be opened nor right-clicked) and then will disappear. I've tried multiple PCs and multiple ports and still have the same issue. In the device manager, it shows up as "Unknown USB Device (Set Address Failed)".

There isn't any mechanical damage on it (at least not on the outside). I've tried to disable it, uninstall it and update USB drivers. I've also tried running windows troubleshooter and checking power settings. USB stick also does not show up at all in the disk manager, so I cannot change its letter (although there seems to not be any conflict. When it shows up for a second in the explorer, the letter is correct).

I've also tried some readily available apps for recovering data from USB, but they cannot detect my stick.

Is there any way to fix this issue or at least to get the data from the stick?

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  • A guess would be that either the connector is failing or the control chip. They're not worth fighting once they start to play up, just bin it & use another.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 9:22
  • Thanks for the comment, @Tetsujin! I don't value the device that much, but I would like to somehow extract the data from it. I guess I can try to solder connector, but is there anything that can be done regarding control chip?
    – BassAstral
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 10:33
  • Data recovery service. They can get right down to chip-level… but they're not cheap. This is not a DIY job. Next time, never keep the only copy of any data on something so fragile as a USB stick or SD card. In fact, never keep only one copy of any data on anything.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 10:35
  • In addition to what @Tetsujin is saying .. I myself keep backups mostly on old school platter drives and store those drives away from magnetic fields and temperature changes. Flash technology is volatile, even SSDs (eventually). Platters are technically also volatile.. but have no known shelf life. I still have an MFM drive from the early 80s that can still store data.
    – Señor CMasMas
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 12:42

1 Answer 1

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Chip-off, but for that you need specialized (and thus pretty expensive) hardware/software. Also USB flash drive won't be usable after that. A data recovery lab may charge in range $400 and up depending on what you exactly have.

flash-extractor NAND recovery tool

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    Mostly "and up". This is very specialized work.
    – Señor CMasMas
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 12:38
  • @SeñorCMasMas It is, it is also very time consuming.
    – Joep van Steen
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 21:38

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