While trying to access data from a USB drive, you may get an error “USB Device not recognized: One of the devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it”. There could be many factors that can lead to this issue, such as:. Corrupt or unstable USB driver.
Windows is missing important updates. USB controllers may have become unstable or corrupt. Corrupt USB drive or partition However, you can still fix the issue and extract the files from the USB drive with the help of the solutions provided in this post.
Re: Boot Camp not recognized latke Apr 6, 2007 1:22 PM ( in response to CWasko ) I also have this problem with bootcamp not being recognized, I have a single hard disk in a macbook (core2) with 4 partitions (the 4th being windows XP, NTFS formatted). How to fix Seagate Backup Plus drive for Mac not recognized/detected/showing up? Free download DiskWarrior alternative to repair APFS partition on macOS Mojave/High Sierra; How to fix external hard drive not recognized after accidental unplugging on Windows and Mac?
In the worst-case scenario, you may have to format the drive to make it usable again and lose the data that was on the USB drive to circumvent the device not recognized error. Therefore, we have also mentioned how you can recover your data from a formatted, damaged, corrupt, and inaccessible hard drives. Solution 1: Restart A simple reboot can fix a lot of issues including the “USB Device not recognized” issue. Unplug your USB drive, shut down the system, and then remove the power cord from the power supply as the modern systems don’t go off completely and the motherboard still gets power. Then connect the power supply, boot the system, and plug in your USB drive. Check if it’s recognized and you are able to access the drive via File Explorer. Solution 2: Try Different PC Try connecting your USB drive to a different PC.
If the drive doesn’t work on the second PC, the USB drive could be damaged or corrupt. You can by formatting but that’ll lead to data loss. Read on to know how to handle data loss situation in such case. Re-Install USB Drivers Corrupt or unstable USB drivers can sometimes cause severe problems. The current issue you are facing could be a problem with the USB drive drivers. You can fix this by re-installing the USB drive drivers using Device Manager.
Follow these steps to fix the issue:. Press ‘ Windows+S’ and type Device Manager. Click on ‘ Device Manager’ from the results. Double-click on Universal Serial Bus controllers. Then right-click on the USB drivers and select Uninstall.
You can do this for all other listed USB drivers. After uninstallation, restart your system.
The drivers are automatically installed by Windows and this possibly fixes the USB drive not recognized the problem. Solution 4: Unplug all connected USB devices Sometimes too many connected USB devices on the same machine create conflict that can stop other USB devices from functioning. You can simply unplug all connected USB devices and then connect the USB drive to check if that solves the issue and you are able to access the files. Fixing USB Root Hub.
Open Device Manager and double-click the “ Universal Serial Bus controllers” option. Right-click on USB Root Hub and select Properties. Click Power Management tab and uncheck ‘ Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power’ option. Then click ‘ OK’ to save changes. Restart the system and plug in the UBS drive to check if you are able to access the drive via File Explorer.
Using a Software Tool If the above-mentioned solutions didn’t work for you, you can rely on a safe, reliable, and secure data recovery software—such as Stellar Data Recovery- Standard—that helps you recover data from such a USB drive that is not recognized by the system. The Stellar Data Recovery- Standard for Windows recovers data from a corrupt, logically damaged, formatted, and even from a re-formatted USB drive.
Follow these steps to recover data from your USB drive that is not recognizable and fix the drive after recovery:. Download and install the on your PC. Plug in the USB drive and launch the program. Select what data you want to recover – office documents, files, folders, audio, pictures, videos, etc. You may click ‘ All Data’ to recover all file types. Click Next.
Select the USB drive from the Connected Drives list and then turn ON the Deep Scan toggle switch that appears at the bottom-left corner of the wizard. Click Scan. Wait for few minutes to hours (depending on the disk size) until the data is scanned. After the scan, in the left tree-view pane, all recovered files and folders are listed. You can use the search box present at the top-right corner of the software window to find, preview, and recover specific files or folders.
Alternatively, you can click on the ‘ File Type’ tab to easily browse specific files via type and recover them. Click the checkboxes of the files and folders that you need to recover and then click the ‘ Recover’ button.
A pop up appears. Click the ‘ Browse’ button to select the location where you want to save the recovered data. Make sure to select a different drive. Wait for the process to complete. Again, it may take some time depending on the amount of data to be recovered. After recovery, format the USB drive to make it usable and move your recovered files to the formatted USB drive.
Conclusion Use S.M.A.R.T. – drive monitoring system that comes embedded with all modern drives (HDDs, SSDs). The monitoring system helps you to keep an eye on the disk health and take appropriate measures before it fails or gets damaged to avoid data loss. Turn on automatic Windows updates. Always check and install the latest available Windows updates and drivers for your hardware.
You can visit the support site of your hardware provider and download the latest drivers and tools to keep your system clean and free from any instability. However, in a worst-case scenario, you can always trust Stellar Data Recovery- Standard tool and recover your precious data from not recognising USB device or any other storage device with FAT (FAT16, FAT32), NTFS, or exFAT file system.
An external hard drive or flash drive that is formatted incorrectly will sometimes not not show up on a computer. The majority of the time, this is the problem.
Windows computers utilize two major formats: FAT32 and NTFS. Mac computers use the format type Mac OS X Journaled. Most external hard drives come formatted as either FAT32 or NTFS by default. So, if you are using a Mac computer and the computer is not recognizing your external hard drive or flash drive, chances are good that it is because the drive is not formatted as OS X Journaled.
Alternatively, if you are using a Windows computer, and the drive is formatted as OS X Journaled, it won’t show up. The two major Windows formats, FAT32 and NTFS, can sometimes have incompatibility issues, for unknown reasons. So, if your external hard drive or flash drive is formatted as NTFS and not working, try formatting it to FAT32, or vice versa. This is a common issue among some of the mainstream external hard drives, such as the Western Digital My Book. Skip over to this article if you want to learn more details on. If your external hard drive came with specialized software, chances are good that it could be the software itself that is causing problems between the drive and the computer.
The thing with external hard drive manufacturers is, they assume that you want to use your external hard drive for backup (when you may just want to use it to store files). So, they tell you to install the software before doing anything else, in the directions.
If you have installed the software that came with your external hard drive, and it is not being recognized, try updating the software. Most of the time, there should be a “check for updates” option located somewhere within the software options. If not, go to the manufacturer’s website and search for updated drivers/software for your particular device. After you have the software updated, restart your computer and try connecting the external hard drive again. If the external hard drive still doesn’t work, try uninstalling the software all together.
For example, if you have Western Digital Backup Utility installed, uninstall it, as well as any other Western Digital software, from the Control Panel Programs in Windows. Restart your computer and try connecting the external hard drive. Your computer should recognize it.