Transcend flash drive recovery

On one occasion, I tried using the Win2Flash utility to create Windows 7 bootable USB flash drive. By copying directly from the DVD instead of a copy in the hard drive, I somehow rendered my Transcend USB flash drive unusable. Sure, Windows could still detect the flash drive, it appears in Windows Explorer but it couldn’t read from it nor could I reformat it again to a usable state. I even tried to tinker with its properties in Computer Management. No luck, it seems.

I searched online for anything that I might be able to do to make my flash drive usable again and I came across links for data recovery of flash drives. However, that is not what I wanted. There are no data that needed to be saved, I just wanted the flash drive to work again. After some sifting through the searches, I came across a forum wherein someone has the same problem. The solution, it seems, is to download Transcend’s Online Recovery utility. It seemed to describe what I hope to achieve.

The utility can be downloaded from this website: http://www.transcend-info.com/Support/DLCenter/DLSoftware.asp?ID=4&Func1No=3&Func2No=205&LangNo=0

Transcend’s Online Recovery Tool is described as: “an advanced new software tool specifically developed for Transcend JetFlash USB flash drives. If your flash drive is not working properly, in most cases it can be repaired instantly by using the recovery tool's simple user-friendly interface.”

Using it turned out to be a snap. Simply enter the necessary details on the right side link for quick download. The quick download link will also ask you what model of JetFlash you are using. Most of them are listed there but if you are not sure, simply select JetFlash General Product Series. Afterwards, download the zip file to your hard drive and then extract its content to a folder, say, JetFlash Online Recovery. Go inside the folder and run the executable file located within.

The process actually connects online to Transcends’ servers, hence the requirement that you have an internet connection. Your Transcend flash drive will be diagnosed and then repaired. Less than a minute later, my flash drive is ready to use again.

Now, you probably are curious if it can be used for other flash drive brands. The answer is no. I tried one out of curiosity but the utility could not see the non-Transcend flash drive.

The purpose of this utility is to repair malfunctioning Transcend flash drives, assuming there isn’t anything physically wrong. If what you are aiming for is recovery of lost data, there are plenty of data recovery tools that one can use. So, before you throw away your Transcend flash drive, give this utility a try first and you might save yourself a few bucks.