Free programs for repairing flash drives. Software repair of USB Flash Drive using the SK6211 Kingston datatraveler 2.0 firmware utility

Many users face problems when the USB drive(flash drive), and even such a reliable company as Kingston is no exception. Symptoms that the drive has failed, but it can still be saved are the following:

Problems when writing or reading data from a flash drive to a computer, freezing, crashes;

The flash drive appeared in Explorer, or any file manager, but it is impossible to open it, it produces various error messages;

When connecting a drive operating system always offers to format it (even after the formatting procedure has been completed);

When connecting to a PC, the system displays a message about finding a new device, but it doesn’t go any further;


To restore the flash drive, you need special utilities for Kingston. To make the right choice, you need to know the controller model; we need information about the VID and PID of the flash drive (unique identifiers). You can find them out using the operating system, or by downloading and installing the Flash program Drive Information Extractor.

First way. We connect the USB drive, call context menu my computer and go to “Management”, select “Device Manager” in the list of “USB controllers”, find “Storage USB device", in which we also open the context menu and select "Properties". In the properties you need to select the “Details” tab and select “Equipment ID” from the drop-down list. This way we will get the information we need.

Another way is to get data using the Flash Drive Information Extractor program. After installing it, connect the USB drive and click on the “Get Data” button in the program.

Next, you need to use specialized sites to search for the necessary recovery programs (flashboot.ru is popular among them). In one of the sections, namely iFlash, by entering previously received data about VID and Drive PID we will receive information that the utility should search for and download.

If you have a Kingston flash drive with a size of 8, 16 or 32 gigabytes, then the list of programs for their resuscitation will include the following utilities:
Phison Preformat;
AlcorMP AU698x RT;

After downloading the desired program, install it on your Personal Computer and launch. We connect the failed USB drive; if it appears in the program window, then it is selected correctly. All you have to do is select it and click on the “Start” button. The utility will correct all errors automatically. Disconnect the flash drive and check the result.

Almost every person who is in one way or another connected with computers has at least once encountered the problem of a flash card malfunction. It can be expressed in different ways: Windows does not see the flash drive, refuses to format it, failures occur when copying and moving files, or the wrong amount of memory is determined.

You can restore a Kingston drive using special software

Most simple cases can be cured by simply formatting the flash drive using the Windows operating system. To do this, you need to insert it into your computer and after identifying it, go to My Computer, click right click on the drive and select Format. After successful formatting, the system will notify you about this.

If, after formatting, problems remain or it ends in failure, for example, the operating system generates an error - “Windows cannot complete formatting,” then you need to try another method. For example, Kingston provides for its drives special means to restore their functionality. Recovery program Kingston flash drives can be easily downloaded from the company’s official website, in the support section. After downloading, you need to unpack it and run it. In the window that opens, select the desired drive and click Format. After formatting in a special way, the flash drive should work.

Another method worth trying is to use a low-level formatting program. Such a program, for example, D-Soft Flash Doctor or similar. It is not targeted at any specific drive or manufacturer, so it can format any flash drives and memory cards.

If all these actions lead to nothing, then there are serious problems with the controller.

Restoring a Kingston flash drive using firmware

You can restore a flash drive by using a special utility for low-level firmware of its controller. But there are situations when the device really cannot be helped by anything other than physical intervention, such as soldering or connecting to special devices.

If the drive has the following viability criteria, then there is still a chance to restore it:

  • Windows detects the flash drive when it is plugged into the computer port;
  • after inserting the flash drive into the connector, the system automatically asks for formatting;
  • the drive identifies itself, is visible in the system, and when accessed, the message “Insert disk...” is displayed;
  • systematic errors when copying or moving files to a flash drive;
  • Slow speed of the drive as a whole.

Before you restore the Kingston flash drive, you need to find out the controller identifiers. You need two of them, the first - VID, contains the manufacturer's identifier. The second is PID, which stands for product code. You need to determine them with a utility like Flash Drive Information Extractor. Once you receive them, you can write them down somewhere.

Finding a recovery utility

Directly to carry out the firmware, you will need a special utility that can flash the flash drive controller at a low level. Such special programs Usually available only from equipment manufacturers. With their help, they carry out initial firmware, repair and testing of devices. Sometimes these utilities end up online by accident, and sometimes manufacturers share them. But the whole problem is that each manufacturer has its own utility, which can be different depending on the controller model and the amount of memory.

To find the right program specifically for the model being reanimated, you will need SID and PID. There is one service on the network called Flashboot.ru, which stores thousands of utilities for firmware various devices and gadgets.

You must substitute the received numbers in the SID and PID fields and click search. The service can display several program options at once. You need to choose the one whose description indicates the corresponding volume of the drive being restored. The list may also contain utilities for other manufacturers. You need to remember that you need to restore the Kingston flash drive, so select the most suitable configuration from the list. The Utils field describes the name of the program. After finding the desired line in the list, you need to copy the name of the utility and go to the files section of the flashboot.ru website. You need to paste the copied name into the search bar and click find.

After finding the utility, you need to download it to your computer and unpack it. Sometimes a situation arises when the program you are looking for is not in the files. Then you can simply search for her by name in any search engine.

Using a program to recover a Kingston flash drive

Using the utility is the simplest part of the operation. You just need to insert the USB flash drive, launch the program and click on the Start button in the program. Of course, the design, localization and operating methods of different utilities for different flash drives may be different, but the essence is the same, and it is intuitive. After successful flashing of the controller, the operating system may immediately offer to format the revived flash drive.

If all else fails

If nothing helped or the utility was never found, this means that, most likely, one of the modules of the drive’s electrical circuit is physically damaged. In such a situation, only a service center can help. Specialists will be able to physically connect to the contacts of the flash drive and analyze or scan for damage. If the flash drive can be repaired, then it will be repaired, but if not, then nothing will help it.

Good day!

If your flash drive begins to constantly fail: it cannot be formatted, when connected to a computer it often freezes, when copying files to it errors occur, but it has not been subjected to mechanical stress - there is a CHANCE for restoring its functionality!

It would be nice if, when connecting a flash drive, it was at least somehow detected, for example: a connection sound is made, the flash drive is displayed in "my computer", the LED on it blinks, etc. If the computer does not see the flash drive at all, then first I recommend reading this article:

In general, give universal instructions, how and with what program what to do to restore a flash drive - impossible! But in this short article I will try to give an algorithm that will help even novice users to understand the problem and solve it.

Restoring a flash drive // ​​step by step

Controller Model Definition

By the will of fate, it turned out that I had one flash drive, which Windows refused to format - an error occurred "Windows can't complete formatting". The flash drive, according to the owner, did not fall, no water got on it, and in general, it was handled quite carefully...

All that was clear after examining it was that it was 16 GB, and its brand was SmartBuy. When connected to a PC, the LED lit up, the flash drive was detected and visible in the explorer, but it did not work properly.

SmartBuy 16 GB - "experimental" non-working flash drive

To restore normal work flash drives, you need to reflash the controller chip. This is done with special utilities, and for each type of controller there is its own utility! If the utility is chosen incorrectly, then with a high degree of probability you will completely ruin the flash drive... I’ll say even more, for one model range flash drives - there may be different controllers!

Each device have their own unique identification numbers - VID and PID , and the flash drive is no exception. To select the correct flashing utility, you need to determine these identification numbers (and the controller model based on them).

One of the most simple ways Find out the VID, PID, and model of the flash drive controller - use special utilities. One of the best of its kind is .

Flash Drive Information Extractor

Small free utility, to get maximum information about the flash drive. No need to install it!

The program will determine the model of the USB flash drive, model and type of memory (all modern flash drives are supported, at least from normal manufacturers)...

The program will work even in cases where it is not defined file system flash drives when the computer freezes when connecting the media.

Information received:

  • controller model;
  • possible options for memory chips installed in the flash drive;
  • type of installed memory;
  • maximum current consumption declared by the manufacturer;
  • USB version;
  • the full physical volume of the disk;
  • disk space reported by the operating system;
  • VID and PID;
  • Query Vendor ID;
  • Query Product ID;
  • Query Product Revision;
  • Controller Revision;
  • Flash ID (not for all configurations);
  • Chip F/W (for some controllers), etc.

Important! The program only works with USB flash drives. MP3 players, phones and other devices - it does not recognize. It is advisable, before starting the program, to leave only one flash drive connected to the USB ports, from which you want to get maximum information.

Working with Flash Drive Information Extractor

  1. We disconnect everything that is connected from the USB ports (at least all drives: players, external hard disks etc.).
  2. Insert the flash drive to be repaired into the USB port;
  3. We launch the program;
  4. Press the button "Get information about the flash drive" ;
  5. After some time, we get maximum information about the drive (see screenshot below).
  6. If the program freezes- don’t do anything and don’t close it. Remove the flash drive from the USB port after a couple of minutes, the program should “hang” and you will see all the information that it managed to pull out from the flash drive...

Now we know the information about the flash drive and we can start searching for the utility.

Information about the flash drive:

  • VID: 13FE; PID: 4200;
  • Controller model: Phison 2251-68 (second line in the screenshot above);
  • SmartBuy 16 GB.

Addition

You can reliably determine the controller model if you disassemble the flash drive. True, not every flash drive case is collapsible, and not every one can be put back together later.

Usually, to open the casing of a flash drive, you need a knife and a screwdriver. When opening the case, be careful not to damage the inside of the flash drive. An example of a controller is shown in the screenshot below.

Disassembled flash drive. Controller model: VLI VL751-Q8

Addendum 2

You can find out the VID and PID of a flash drive using the device manager (in this case, you don’t need to install anything). True, in this case we will not recognize the controller model, and there is some risk that VID and PID it will not be possible to accurately identify the controller. And yet, suddenly the above utility freezes and does not provide any information at all...


How to find a utility for flashing a flash drive

Important! After flashing the flash drive, all information on it will be deleted!

1) Knowing the controller model, you can simply use search engines (Google, Yandex for example) and find what you need.

The operating algorithm is as follows:

  1. We go to the site:
  2. Enter yours VID and PID into the search bar and look for it;
  3. You'll likely find dozens of lines in the results list. Among them you need to find a line that matches: controller model, your manufacturer, VID and PID, flash drive size .
  4. Further in the last column you will see the recommended utility. By the way, please note that the version of the utility also matters! All that remains is to download the necessary utility and apply it.

After you find and download the required utility, run it and format the media - in my case, you only had to press one button - Restore .

Formatter SiliconPower v3.13.0.0 // Format and Restore. An end-user utility designed for both low-level and high-level (FAT32) formatting of flash drives on Phison controllers of the PS2251-XX line.

After a couple of minutes of blinking the LED on the flash drive, it began to work normally, messages from Windows about the impossibility of formatting no longer appeared. Result: the flash drive was restored (became 100% working) and given to the owner.

That's all, actually. I would be grateful for any additions on the topic. Good Luck!

Hi all! It’s not for nothing that I decided to write an article about how to flash a flash drive – I have experience. Yesterday I restored my flash drive Kingston DT Elite 3.0 16GB. Everything worked out, and I thought, why not write similar instructions, and tell me what to do and how to do it, in order to give the flash drive a new life :).

Nowadays, probably every house has a flash drive and very rarely just one. It’s convenient to transfer information onto them, they’re beautiful, and besides, they’re not expensive these days. But very often USB drives fail. If we talk about why this happens, then we ourselves are in first place. Do you always do a safe removal of your flash drive? So I rarely do. There may, of course, be other reasons why flash drives simply “die”.

One point needs to be clarified here. It happens that the flash drive really “dies”. In this case, it is impossible to restore it. At least at home. But if the USB drive shows at least some signs of life when connected to the computer, then you can try to restore its operation using the controller firmware.

What signs of life might there be for a USB drive?

  • When you connect the flash drive to the computer, the computer signals that the device is connected - that’s good.
  • At Windows connection ask to format the removable drive (but during the formatting process there are problems and errors such as “Windows cannot complete formatting”).
  • The flash drive is detected and visible in Explorer, but when you try to open it, the message “Insert disk...” appears.
  • Errors occur when copying information.
  • Very slow speed of writing/reading information.

If there is valuable information on the flash drive, then you can try to restore it before and after the firmware. This can be done using different programs. I advice Recuva, here is the article but there are many other good programs.

If the information is very valuable, then it is better not to do anything yourself so as not to make it worse. Contact special service centers who are engaged in information recovery.

Let's now look at the entire process of flashing the controller on real example, using my Kingston DataTraveler Elite 3.0 16GB flash drive as an example. My flash drive broke down. It’s interesting. I needed to upload files to it and delete those that had already been recorded. I connected it to the computer and started deleting the folder. But the folder was deleted very slowly. I unplugged and plugged this flash drive back in, a message appeared that the disk needs to be formatted “Before using the disk...”.

Since there were no Important files on the flash drive, I started formatting without hesitation.

But the process itself lasted a very long time and never ended, I forcibly stopped it. The message “Windows could not complete formatting” may also appear.

But still, I formatted it, the tenth time, and only in FAT 32. After which the USB drive was detected normally and I was even happy. But it was not there. I started copying files onto it, and the recording speed was approximately 100 kb/s. I decided to flash it, which I did.

Determining the VID and PID of the USB controller

First we need determine VID and PID. This is data about the model and manufacturer of the controller, which is located in our drive. Using this data, we will look for a utility for the firmware. There are many different programs that can be used to determine VID and PID. I recommend the utility Flash Drive Information Extractor You can download it from the link.

Connect the USB flash drive to your computer and run the Flash Drive Information Extractor program (extract the program folder from the archive and run the GetFlashInfo.exe file).

Click the button at the top of the program “Get data about the flash drive”.

The program will give us the result. We look at the information that is located opposite VID and PID.

You can copy these numbers, or leave the utility window open, we will now need the received data.

We are looking for a utility for flashing a flash drive

Based on the VID and PID data, we need to find the utility with which we will flash the controller. There is a good website flashboot.ru, which contains a database of flash drives and utilities for their recovery.

In the search results we look for a flash drive similar to ours. The list may include devices from other manufacturers. They just have the same controller, it was identified by VID and PID. You may have noticed that I have a 16 GB flash drive, but in the list I highlighted 32 GB. I think there's nothing wrong with that (just where the name of the utility is not indicated on 16 GB). You try to choose a more similar device from the list.

We are interested in the field UTILS(utility), copy its name in full.

Unfortunately, the utility that I need was not found on this site. Perhaps you will have better luck and you will see something in the search results. Download the utility to your computer.

But I didn’t stop there and started Googling. I just asked “SK6221 MPTool 2013-04-25” and found this utility on some other site. If you have the same flash drive, then this utility is . True, the name of the archive is different, but this did not stop me from successfully curing my flash drive.

USB drive recovery process

Disconnect the flash drive. Extract the folder with the utility from the archive and run .exe file. In my case it is the MPTool.exe file. Also look at the text file readme.txt. Perhaps there are instructions there, or a link to a site with instructions. If the instructions are in English, then translate it using the same translate.google.ru.

I'll tell you how I did it (you just may have a different utility and everything may be different there, but it shouldn’t be very different).

The utility is running. We connect the flash drive. I have information about the flash drive in two lines in the program. Press the button Start. In my case, the yellow strip signaled the firmware process. We wait.

When the process ended, I saw a green color, everything seemed to be fine.

Should appear immediately Windows message prompting you to format the disk. But most likely nothing will work out the first time. Unplug the flash drive and plug it back in. The driver should be installed and the removable drive should appear in Explorer. You can format it.

I checked the recording speed, everything is as it should be for USB 3.0, everything is fine!

You need to be prepared for the fact that the actions may differ from those I described. And not everything can work out the first time. The main thing is not to give up and everything will work out!

Kingston flash drives are renowned for their reliability and long term services, but they are also not protected from various failures. Sometimes the drive actually “dies” and it is not possible to restore it. More often there are situations when a flash drive can be brought back to life using a special firmware utility.

Most often, Kingston dt100g2 and datatraveler flash drives break.

Is it possible to recover a flash drive?

Signs that the drive can be restored:

  • When you connect a flash drive, a notification appears that a new device has been detected.
  • The system prompts you to format the removable disk.
  • The drive does not open, but is shown in Explorer.
  • Errors occur when reading and writing data.

These problems can be eliminated by flashing the controller or formatting the media, but if the flash drive has important information, then before performing any restoration procedures you need to try to “pull it out”. Use to extract a recovery program like Recuva or so as not to lose the necessary files.

Search for a program for flashing the controller

To restore, you will need a special utility for a Kingston flash drive. In order not to make a mistake and download the right program, you need to know the drive controller model.

Method 1

Look necessary information You can go to flashboot.ru in the iFlash section, using the VID and PID values ​​of the flash drive as a filter.

  1. Connect the drive to your computer.
  2. Open the device manager (right-click on the “Computer” icon - Manage).
  3. Find "USB Mass Storage Device".
  4. Right click and open properties.
  5. Go to the Details section and select the Hardware ID property.

Method 2

Another way to obtain the necessary information is to download the Flash Drive Information Extractor program and click the “Get Data” button. The report will contain the lines “VID” and “PID”; use their value to find a utility that can correctly restore the Kingston Datatraveler flash drive.


You can download the program in the “Files” section on the website flashboot.ru. If the utility is not here, try to find it on other web resources.

Recovery utilities

You can find the desired program without a controller model - just type in the search engine the query “utility recovery kingston" In the results you will see several utilities, among which there will certainly be programs such as Phison Preformat, AlcorMP AU698x RT, etc.

The problem is that Kingston flash drive recovery programs only work if they are compatible with the controller installed in the drive. Therefore, if you download the first repair utility you come across, it may not detect the connected media.

When required program found, you can begin to restore it. Be sure to look at the instructions, which should be packaged in the archive along with the recovery utility - perhaps the program has a special operating procedure. The general recovery procedure looks like this:


You don’t need to do anything else: the program will automatically correct errors and return the flash drive to a working state. This completes the restoration of the Kingston flash drive; if the controller firmware did not help fix the problem, then the reason incorrect operation It is worth looking among hardware faults.