When working with a USB stick or a storage card like an SD or MicroSD card..

• Determine if one is "fake".
• "Fix" one which cannot be formatted.

• Check the read/write speeds (for various file sizes).

See also:

• /tag/usb-hardware

• Flash storage reliability (they are not reliable)

Other things to try first ∞

Depending on what other things you have, there may be other things for you to try.

• In different USB ports, especially front versus back.

• If it's an SD card or the like, try another reader.

  • Perhaps a phone.

• With or without a hub.

  • If in a hub that has a separate power supply, try plugging that in.

• Another operating system.

  • With my bad SD cards, I also try Linux.

If your device is never detected at all, you're likely out of luck.

However, if your device is detected but not working the way you'd expect, then your next bet is to use specialized software.

Formatting ∞

• Try formatting in a phone if you can

• SD Formatter Tool

  • This is the official SD card tool for formatting a card.

• HP USB Storage Format Tool (portable)

  • I didn't look for an official home page.
  • This appears to basically be a copy of the regular Windows format tool.

Fake testing ∞

• FakeFlashTest (portable)

• USB Flash Drive Tester

  • (direct download)

• Lexar USB format

  • Lets one adjust a USB stick to make it detected as a fixed disk drive, in order to make partitions.
  • I don't know where I originally found this, but I did find The Lexar USB Format Tool on tipsdotcom.com (direct download)

• RMPrepUSB

  • Allows one to format a USB stick with a smaller size.
  • Handy for fake sticks/cards which report a large size but can only actually deal with a smaller capacity. Such drives will, if given too much data, go corrupt.
  • Lots of other features for bootability..

Info ∞

• h2testw

  • Not tested.
  • Requires a working card.

• ChipGenius (.rus) (portable)

  • Tested v4_00_1024_0047
  • The software notes mydigit.cn but that website is down as of 2016-06-06. I found ChipGenius on archive.org. See also ChipGenius alternate page on archive.org.
  • I did not investigate FlashGenius (FlashGenius on archive.org) or MyDiskTest (MyDiskTest on archive.org)

• usbflashinfo (.rus) (portable)

  • Not tested.
  • Requires a working card.

Speed testing ∞

• FlashBench

Other things ∞

It's possible that device drivers are messed up, but this is unlikely. USB mass storage support is cooked into all operating systems these days.

It's also possible, though unlikely, that malware or a virus is interfering with a device's operation.

Resources ∞

• https://rmprepusb.com/rmprep/-fake-usb-flash-memory-drives.html [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
• https://web.archive.org/web/20210312234225/https://www.rmprepusb.com/documents/rmprepusb-beta-versions

• https://rmprepusb.com/rmprep/repair-your-usb-flash-drive.html [ 3 ] [ 4 ]

Screenshots ∞

Flash Drive Tester

ChipGenius

hwtest2

FakeFlashTest

RMPrepUSB

usbflashinfo

HP USB Storage Format Tool

HP USB Storage Format Tool, write protect error

Last updated 2022-06-05 at 18:44:59

Footnotes