Unable to open a USB pen drive on Windows PC

[s_acharya]

Hi all, I am unable to access a particular pen drive. It was working alright till few days back. But now, file explorer does not show the pen drive when I insert it into any of the slots.
All other pen drives are working fine. It has important data I cannot afford to miss. So, can anybody sort it? It will be a big help........thanks!

[Kapil Arya]

Hello,

Please refer to following fix and see if that helps you:

USB Devices not working in Windows 8.1

Hope this helps, Good luck

[s_acharya]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I did the work on regedit but still the problem persists. I checked Control Panel-> Hardware and Sound->Devices and Printers and I could see Mass Storage Device icon. After right clicking and doing troubleshoot it said device is working properly. But when I clicked on Browse Files, nothing is happening. Also, when I opened File Explorer, I cannot see the Flash drive. In Devices and Printers, if I click on Remove Device, the MSD icon goes. I wish to add that when I plugged another Flash drive, I could see it in File Explorer as well as in Device and Printers and a Auto Play option is shown for this 2nd Flash drive in Device and Printers. The 2nd Flash drive is working alright. Does that make any sense to anyone? Help
BTW - I am using win8

[Kapil Arya]

Okay, try this alternative:

USB Device Not Recognized in Windows 8 / 7

Also suggest you to check the USB by plugging it to another computer. If it doesn't works on other computer as well, it's most probably having bad sectors. Try chkdsk /r command and see if that do a trick. Even if the issue persists, that means the USB is malfunctioned.

Good luck again

[HappyAndyK]

Maybe the problem is with that pen drive then ....

[quiropraxi]

Interrupted diver install can cause this too, I will try to remember the tool to remove failed installs to do it again...

[s_acharya]

sorry for the late reply. I was offline past few days. I tried chkdsk x: /r but it says "cannot open volume for direct access"!
Then I open properties of the said drive and it says "used space 0 bytes, free space 0 bytes, capacity 0 bytes."
Windows does not read name of the flash drive.
Does this mean it is destroyed. Sure, there must be a way to recover data!!

[Kapil Arya]

Seems like it has been vanished. Consult third-party data recovery services to recover the data, if it's of paramount importance for you.

Regards.

[s_acharya]

Thanks anyway. it seems like the file system is not readable. cannot accept that a electronic device can go like that

[s_acharya]

Thank you Chinmay for reliving this post.
I guess my PC has USB driver installed by default along with other drivers. FYI, it uses win8. I was auto checking drivers and it says "drivers are working properly".
So, dont know what is wrong!!!