Hello forum,

First of all, this is a really complex case, and this is why I have just posted here on the research and development area, to at least have an expectation if my files may or may not be recovered somehow one day. I have at least 5 or 6 USB failed PenDrives/Memory Cards (flash drives) that happened to become faulty a few years ago. Let me explain what happened:

1. Everything began with the acquisition of a brand new 128 Gb PNY conventional USB flash drive bought in a trip to the United States in 2016 (Orlando, FL.). I'm specifying where I bought it (BestBuy stores) because this means I assume it was in perfect reliable condition, without any falsifying or otherwise misusing attempts on its original package from supplier and vendor.

2. The USB drive at first appeared to be just like any other ordinary USB flash drive and to work properly back in 2016

3. I had another SanDisk USB flash drive without problems either - but then I made the worst mistake possible:

4. I copied the original SanDisk files and folders to this new 128 Gb PNY USB flash drive in order to encrypt this new 128 Gb PNY flash drive with the Sandisk SecureAccess encrypting program. I executed and encrypted the SanDisk program in this new 128 Gb PNY USB flash drive because I didn't want it to be readable by other people at my work, where it was supposed to be used as my backup unit.

5. The program didn't seem to have worked as expected and this new PNY 128 Gb USB flash drive started to present weird behaviors on an unreliable basis, sometimes being recognized by the computer and sometimes not. Everytime the flash drive was recognized it was readable and writable without encryption neither requiring the password typed by the encryption process.

6. Since then this USB flash drive became unrecognized by any PC, remaining unreadable and unwriteable. It is seldom recognized by the PC when plugged in and it was never used again ever since, despite being full of files I'd like to recover.

7. To make matters even worse (if this is possible) it seems that my CPU at work got infected with a version of the autorun.inf virus and the HDD failed one day in 2018, causing its replacement with everything implied with it: Windows 10 reinstallation with all drivers determining USB communication specificities. Recently I was wondering if this HDD could have been damaged by the virus as well and rendered completely useless just like the flash drives in my possession, which are the focus of the article.

8. I received the CPU back from my work's maintenance department (which no longer exists) with a new 2Tb HDD which is still working fine since then, but the unreliable USB behavior of these flash drives became progressively worse and worse until all of them seem to have been rendered useless, to the point of not being recognized by Windows either on Windows' Disk Management tool.

9. Today I'm already resigned myself to have lost these expensive USB flash drives. Now I have 5 or 6 old USB flash drives, some of them which were used in my personal portable devices and are now completely useless.

10. In an attempt to rescue these faulty USB flash drives I've downloaded dozens of programs which promised to repair them, including TestDisk, Recuva portable, ChipGenius, HDDScan, HPUSBDisk, RmPrep and other not-so-known software, all of them without success. All of the USB flash drives now are seldom recognized neither by Windows Explorer nor by Windows Disk Management Tool nor by TestDisk nor by (for now) any other programs, except those aimed to retrieve firmware information or other identification details of these devices, and show a drive empty space of 0b. Sometimes I'm lucky enough one or other program(s) is able to recognize the drive's presence, but always as a ghost drive with 0 bytes inaccessible for them or either for Windows 10 itself. In fact, it seems they become more and more unresponsive for windows and equally for other diagnostic software the more frequently they are plugged in and out of the USB port(s).

11. In 2019 I downloaded instructions from a webpage from SanDisk with a hint that worked only for a while. Its picture and the corresponding solution are shown below. Other pictures with Windows Disk Management and Device Management tools, as well as with a screenshot of USBDeview about current faulty USB drives plugged in are shown below.


Any help is greatly appreciated.

Leonardo.

TL;DR

What do you want? Want the data from these drives or makes drives usable again?

_________________
Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Both, if possible. If impossible to make drives usable again, at least to recover my files contained therein with a program like Recuva, DiskDigger or any other free file recovery software.

I'd rewrite and concentrate on the case at hand. for example, .. "1. Everything began with the acquisition of a brand new 128 Gb PNY conventional USB flash drive bought in a trip to the United States in 2016 (Orlando, FL.). " .. is totally useless information, we don't care you were ona trip, we don't care where you were, etc..

And this is not research and it's not development. Forum rules: Please do not post questions about data recovery cases here.

If you want to recover data, the drive has to be detected with correct capacity in Disk Management. If you'll be limited to free tools then go ahead, there's no use in use recommending tools then.

_________________
Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service