All kinds of removable drives in the form of the most common flash drives and memory cards have recently become more and more popular, due to their compact design and very impressive capacity (just the other day the world's first terabyte drive was announced). However, they often need to be checked for operability at least to prevent failures, tested for compliance with the manufacturer's specifications, or even restored after critical errors.
Let's briefly dwell on some types of programs for checking a flash drive for operability, touching on the main aspects of the actions performed. But first, let's consider in what areas testing may be needed, which will automatically affect the choice of one or anotherapplications on a case-by-case basis.
Programs for checking a flash drive for performance: main directions of action
Among the main actions that most users may need, the following can be singled out separately:
- check drive for errors;
- testing for compliance with factory settings (determining the actual read / write speed);
- restoring performance in case of critical failures (installation of factory firmware with restoration of microcontrollers);
- whether partial full recovery of information that could be lost due to errors, formatting or virus exposure.
Checking for errors using the system
First of all, pay attention to the tools of Windows systems. Of course, there are not as many powerful tools in all known modifications as we would like, however, there is still something to check drives for software failures.
Probably, many have already guessed that we are talking about the disk check tool built into the system, which can be launched either through the graphical interface, using the properties section of the connected media in Explorer, or from the command line with additional attributes. You can get complete information about all the options for using this applet directly in the Shell by running the chkdsk /? (in this case, run the console on behalf ofadministrator is not required). Choose one of the options and check. Possible errors and failures, unless they are classified as fatal, will be corrected automatically.
Programs for checking flash drives for errors
Unfortunately, Windows tools do not always give the desired result, so it is much more expedient to use applications from third-party developers. For example, in order not to search for some narrowly focused utility, you can use any application designed to check hard drives (for example, CrystalDiskInfo or Victoria HDD class applets).
But for ordinary users, if we are talking exclusively about USB drives, we can recommend a portable program for checking a flash drive for performance called Check Flash.
It is enough to set the parameters shown in the image above, activate the start of testing and wait for the results to appear.
Apps for testing read/write speed
The above free program for checking a flash drive is also useful if you absolutely need to make sure that the read and write speeds fully comply with the parameters declared by the manufacturer. In this case, you just need to change the direction of the test.
But the most relevant utility, according to many experts, is the program for checking a flash drive in Russian FlashMemory Toolkit.
It allows you to perform any of the above tests, including even a low-level check, and can recover data damaged due to crashes. But the application itself is paid, but for conducting one or two tests as a trial (shareware) version, it is optimal.
Applets for restoring drive firmware
The most unpleasant situations are when the system does not recognize the connected drive or displays a message that it needs to be formatted. But usually all such attempts fail, and Windows reports that the process cannot be completed. This is due to the fact that special controllers (microcircuits) do not work in the drive itself, which is a direct result of damage to the firmware of the device.
If possible, among the programs for repairing flash drives, it is best to immediately look for an applet developed by the drive manufacturer itself. As a rule, such applications are posted on official websites and are completely free (except in cases where the device manufacturer does not provide any applets for restoring flash drives at all).
But in such a situation, you can use universal utilities like D-Soft Flash Doctor.
You can also try to restore the firmware yourself by determining the device identifiers VID and PID (for example, in the ChipGenius application), then searching for the firmware using this information,by downloading the appropriate software and installing it yourself.
Programs for recovering lost information
So, with the programs for checking the performance of a flash drive, we sorted it out a bit. Now let's move on to the most burning issue related to the possibility of recovering information. It is not recommended to use simple applets like Recuva for this, because after scanning, almost all objects will be marked as unrecoverable. But domestic software developments in the form of R. Saver and R-Studio applications allow you to find and bring to life any files even after the drive has been completely formatted (but not after a low-level one).
Often the most powerful utility of its kind, R-Studio finds even those deleted or damaged objects that the user is not aware of, and restores them without problems!
