How To Fix Corrupted Kingston Pen Drive – Detailed Tutorials

Kingston Technology Corporation from the USA is a well-known multinational computer technology company that manufactures and sells flash memory products and other computer-related memory products. Kingston flash drives are available in several styles with up to 2TB capacities for users to save work documents, photos, movies and backup files, and etc.

Like other digital devices, Kingston pen drive might become corrupted suddenly. In the following content, you will find the common causes & situations of Kingston flash drive failure, and then learn how to fix corrupted Kingston pen drive. Also read: How to Recover Files Lost After Cut and Paste 

Part 1. Kingston Pen Drive Is Corrupted

Below are 7 reasons for Kingston flash drive failure.

  1. The NAND flash memory is failed because you have used it for a long time.
  2. The driver of Kingston flash drive is either missing or conflicting with others.
  3. The connector that connects Kingston drive with the computer is bent or broken.
  4. The flash drive has been attacked by viruses.
  5. Certain programs running on the drive are damaged for some reason, causing data corruption. 
  6. The insufficient/unstable power supply of your Kingston drive is likely to cause damage to it.
  7. The flash drive is physically damaged due to improper use.

Below are 3 typical situations where you realize that your flash drive is not working.

Situation A. The Kingston pen drive is not detected.

Example 1. Kingston flash drive is not showing up in Windows Explorer (see this picture).

Fix Corrupted Kingston Pen Drive

Now you should open Windows Disk Management to diagnose the problem. (More details about how to use Windows Disk Management and other Windows tips can be found here). 

If you can find the Kingston flash drive in Windows Disk Management, the issue is likely to be caused by missing drive letter or drive letter conflict. Please right-click on it and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths; alternatively, you can use the Change Drive Letter function of MiniTool Partition Wizard to do it. 

Example 2.Kingston flash drive doesn’t appear in Disk Management (see this picture).

disk management

In this situation, you need to make sure if your computer settings are not correct, if the USB port or data cable is broken, and also check if your drive has physical damages.

Situation B. The Kingston pen drive is not formatting/accessible.

In most cases, you will see error messages like this.

– You need to format the disk in drive * before you can use it (* represents the drive letter). 

– H:\ is not accessible. The volume doesn’t contain a recognized file system. (see the pictures below)

format Corrupted Kingston Pen Drive
Not accesible

Situation C. The Kingston pen drive is write-protected.

Write protected

Part 2. How to Fix Corrupted Kinston Pen Drive

2.1 How to Repair Kingston Pen Drive When It Is Not Showing

First of all, ensure that the Kingston flash drive is showing up on your computer, then try these methods to fix an unrecognized USB disk.

  • A. Change Drive Letter and Paths
  • If the unrecognized USB flash drive is appearing in Windows Disk Management, please right-click on it and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths to add or change a drive letter to it.
  • B. Plug the USB drive into another USB port
  • C. Unplug and reconnect your computer
  • D.Update the drivers
  • If the drivers are damaged/corrupted, your Kingston drive won’t be detected by the computer.
  • E. Uninstall recently installed software and hardware

2.2 How to Recover Data from Corrupted USB Flash Drive

In order to recover pen drive data effectively, you should make the best use of the professional recovery tool. I recommend MiniTool Power Data Recovery – a feature-rich software that keeps updating. Download and install the program, connect the Kingston drive to your computer and then you could follow the steps to recover data from Kingston flash drive.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Power Data Recovery and select Removable Disk Drive on the left side.

If you only want to recover pictures from it and need a quick result, you should:

① Click on the Settings at the bottom right and find Graphics & Picture folder under Extra search for known file types.

②  Check all the picture types you need → click OK confirm.

Fix Corrupted Kingston Pen Drive

Click on the Scan button on the right side of the Settings button, wait for the scan process to finish.

④ Look at the found files carefully, check all the files you need, and click on the Save button to choose a storage path, at last, click on the OK button.

Pay attention, you must not choose the Kingston drive to save recovered files because that operation will lead to data overwriting.

2.3 How to recover data from pen drive using Command Prompt?

Make sure that the Kingston flash drive is connected to your computer and do as follows.

① Open Windows search box to type cmd, then right-click on Command Prompt → choose Run as administrator.

② Type diskpart, press Enter.

③ Type list disk, press Enter.

④ Type select disk *, press Enter.

⑤ Type rescan, press Enter, wait for the scan to finish, and finally check if your files are recovered.

2.4 How to Repair Inaccessible Kingston Flash Drive

When you realize that Kingston flash drive is not formatting or accessible, the best solution is formatting it. The following three methods are feasible.

Method 1. Format USB drive in Disk Management

  • ① Open Disk Management, and right-click on the Kingston drive and choose Format (see the image below).
  • ② Choose a File system, keep the Allocation unit size unchanged (optionally you can change the Volume label).
  • ③ Check Perform a quick format, at last click OK.
Quick format

Method 2. Format the flash drive in Windows File Explorer

  • ① Open File Explorer, right-click on your Kinston disk on the right-hand side.
  • ② Choose Format from the context menu, keep Capacity & Allocation unit size unchanged, after that, choose a File system. (Optionally, you could add a new volume label in this step).
  • ③ Check Quick Format → then click Start.
format

Method 3. Format pen drive by using USB drive repair tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard. 

  • ① Run and launch MiniTool Partition Wizard, choose your USB drive.
  • ② Expand Partition Management from the left sidebar, then select Format Partition.
  • ③ Choose a File System (This step is optional, you can add Partition Label for your USB drive.)
  • ④ Click OK – press the gray Apply button, at last, choose Yes in the pop-up window to begin the formatting process.
Minitool wizard
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