I dropped my laptop on a USB stick. It got slightly bent, however when I plug it into the laptop the light comes on but the computer doesn't recognize it.
I want to recover my data as I has important coursework and school folder on it. I don't want to pay a bomb to get it fixed. I have tried the cmd and device management advice but it hasn't worked.
What can I do to recover the information?
33 Answers
There are multiple connections between the computer and the USB drive. A light means you are getting power, but doesn't mean it can recognize or read it. The damage may be either to the USB stick or to the connector on the computer.
Here are a couple things to try;
- Put the stick in a different USB port on the computer (if it works then the port on your computer may be damaged)
- Try the stick in a different computer (if that doesn't work, the stick in damaged)
- While plugged into the port, carefully put slight pressure on the USB stick in the opposite direction it was bent. This may make a connection enough for you to get your files.
If all else fails, and you know someone good with electronics, you can have them solder a connectors to the circuit board inside the drive to get the data, like this.
You can try to poke around with some low-level USB tool like lsusb on a Linux (live) system, but chances are that only confirms your suspicion, that the device is broken.
Edit: Windows has something similar:
If only the plug is bent/broken from the circuit board, you may be able to solder it back on there.
Do you have any copies (e. g. on your computer's hard drive) or backups of the data? Backups are usually the easiest and cheapest data recovery solution, albeit less convenient, because you need to plan ahead.
That just happened to mine. Take all the plastic covering off the USB and slightly push the usb in at an angle that will power up. Than quickly copy paste the files ...fewwwwww
