Kingston USB, Flash Drive, or Pen Drive Recovery Guide

Kingston USB Data Loss Overview

Kingston USB, flash drive, or pen drive is the most popular data protection storage device. It is not only portable but also has huge disk space and fast running speed.

However, it is vulnerable to data loss with many reasons behind it, such as sudden deletion, accidental deletion, disk formatting, virus infection, inaccessible or unreadable disks, power outages, etc. At this point, many users think that the data has been irreversibly lost. Is this really the case?

Fortunately, the deleted files still remain on the Kingston flash drive and the used space is marked as "free" space for new data. When you delete files on a flash drive, it only deletes the file directory instead of the sectors actually containing your data. Thus, your data are always recoverable if you do not overwrite them.

Kingston USB Recovery Dos and Don’ts

To ensure the success of Kingston USB drive recovery, there are some dos and don’ts you need to remember. It increases the data recovery success rate.

• Stop using the Kingston USB immediately. This minimizes the risk of data overwriting, especially when you first learn of data loss. Once overwritten, data recovery becomes impossible.
• Don’t add new data to Kingston USB. The new data may occupy the “free” space of old backup and overwrite them.
• Don’t format the Kingston USB. This process will delete partition and all the data on it, thereby causing further data loss. It’s also called overwriting.
• Use a safe Kingston USB recovery tool. Data recovery software helps to scan and search all the deleted or lost files on a disk and recover them in a short time, even works to recover data from not recognized flash drive. We recommend you use MyRecover.

If your Kingston USB drive has physical damage, it’s wise to directly seek help from a professional data recovery service (eg: Geek Squad). You can find it easily from the Bestbuy store or online chat. And it consists of highly-skilled technicians in data recovery and provides users with comprehensive solutions.

Best Kingston USB Drive Recovery Tool

When you recognize data loss on Kingston USB, you could try to check the Recycle Bin folder and recover deleted files from it. If that yields nothing, you can use a reliable flash drive data recovery software for assistance.

We recommend you use MyRecover. It enables you to recover deleted files on Kingston USB drive in Windows 7, 8, 10, 11, etc, and Windows Server easily and quickly, with a success rate of more than 95%.

• Two advanced scanning methods: Quick Scan and Deep Scan. It will scan and search for all the deleted or lost files on Kingston's USB drive.
• 200+ file types: recover deleted Word/Excel/PPT documents, images, emails, audio files, videos, and more, from your flash drive.
• Complete recovery: recover all the found files completely without losing their quality.
• All-inclusive: handle different data loss scenarios, such as accidental deletion, disk format (eg: recover data from formatted drive), virus infection, inaccessible disk error, etc.

Now please download this data recovery software. Reconnect your Kingston flash drive and be sure it’s recognized by your Windows system. You can then follow the steps below to start Kingston pen drive recovery.

How to Perform Kingston USB Drive Recovery Effortlessly

Step 1: Select and scan the Kingston USB drive.

Launch this data recovery software. It will display all the available drives. Hover the mouse over the drive and click Scan to scan.

Step 2: Preview deleted or lost files.

This software will scan this flash drive quickly and deeply and search for all the deleted or lost files. You can filter and preview files in the flash drive. Here are two methods:

• Click Filter and select a file type, such as Documents.
• Expand the Other Missing Files tab and go to the folder containing deleted files.

Step 3: Recover data from Kingston flash drive

Once all the deleted or lost files are found, select them and click the Recover x files button. You will then be asked to select a location. Please select a new location instead of the original location.  

Notes:  

• The restore button will display the number of selected files and their full size. You can use it to determine the integrity of the recovered files.
• Saving the recovered files to original location may cause data corruption or further data loss.
• This software also applies to Samsung, Toshiba, Seagate, etc. USB drives as well as external hard drive data recovery like Seagate external drive data recovery.
• You can perform Kingston USB recovery for free, up to 500MB in total. To recover all of them, try advanced editions.

How to Fix a Corrupted Kingston USB Drive

Sometimes, the Kingston USB drive is not showing up on your computer and suspect it’s corrupted. Here are 3 situations you may encounter:

• You cannot see the Kingston USB drive in File Explorer. In this case, please check if it shows up in Disk Management. If not, the problem may be due to missing drive letters or complicts.
• The Kingston flash drive is not formatting or accessible error, such as, “you need to format the disk before you can use it”, “* is not accessible. The volume doesn’t contain a recognized file system”, etc.
• The Kingston pen drive is write-protected. It occurs when you try to open a folder or the Kingston drive.

In view of these situations, we summarize some useful methods to fix a corrupted Kingston USB effortlessly.

Way 1: Assign or Change Drive Letter and Path

If your Kingston USB does not show up in Disk Management, it is missing a drive letter, or not compatible with other drive letters.

Step 1. Press Win+ R and type diskmgmt.msc in the Run window. Then click OK to open the Disk Management.

Step 2. Locate the Kingston USB, right-click it, and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Step 3. Click Add if it is missing a drive letter. If not, click Change.

Step 4. Then, select a drive letter and click OK.

Way 2: Try a Different USB Port or PC

If your USB drive is not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management, the cause may be a connection issue or the USB itself. So please connect it to a different USB or PC and see if it appears.

Way 3: Update Kingstone USB Driver

If your driver of Kingstone USB is damaged, the operating system also cannot detect this drive. If you are not sure, go to device manager, find your USB drive, and check if there is a red exclamation mark.

Step 1. Press Win + X and select Device Manager.

Step 2. Expand Disk drives, find and right-click the Kingston USB, then select Update driver.

Step 3. In the Update Driver window, click the Search automatically for drivers option. Then, wait patiently until the process is complete.

Way 4: Check Disk for Errors

If your disk has file system errors, whether it’s damaged or incompatible, you can try to run the Disk Check utility. It will scan its file system or metadata and fix the found error.

Step 1. Connect your Kingston USB to a Windows PC. Then, right-click it and select Properties.

Step 2. In the Properties window, go to the Tools tab and click Check under the Error Checking section.

Step 3. Click Scan Drive to find out file system errors and fix them.

Way 5: Format Kingston USB Drive

If your flash drive asks you to format the disk or says "G:\ is not inaccessible". The most effective method is to format it. But problem is this process will cause data loss. To prevent this, it’s suggested to recover data from Kingston USB first.

Step 1. Open This PC. Right-click the Kingston USB drive and select Format.

Step 2. Select the NTFS file system and click Start.

Notes:

• The quick format option deletes only the file system paths to your data on the Kingston USB drive. If you uncheck it, it will perform a full format and overwrite data on this disk with zero.
• You can also select any recognized file system based on your preferences, such as FAT32, FAT16, exFAT, etc.

Step 3. Click Yes in the prompt to start the formatting process.

If the formatting process fails, please read on fix RAW SD card without formatting to get more formatting methods.