Fixed: Lexar Flash Drive Not Recognized in Windows 7/8/10

The issue: Lexar flash drive not recognized

“Please help. My Lexar 64GB USB flash drive cannot be recognized by my Windows 7 computer. It gives me this prompting message saying USB device not recognized. I disconnected and then reconnected it and get another similar error, ‘The device you connect to this computer malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it.’ What does that mean? How could I make the Lexar flash drive detected and work? I have important data on that USB drive, so don’t want to format Lexar flash drive. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.”

Lexar flash drives and thumb drives are popular among thousands of users due to its high performance, the security property in particular. Therein, the Lexar JumpDrive is one of the most popular flash drives. They are compatible with many operating systems with easy set-up. Capacities vary from 32GB to 128GB, which are suitable for lots of purposes. When the drive cannot be recognized, things must be trying.

Similar error messages on USB flash drive not recognized in Windows 11/10/8/7

USB flash drives are widely used in people’s daily life. It would be quite annoying when these flash drives cannot be recognized. Some other users complain that they also received the following messages while connecting USB sticks:

• One of the devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message.

• An unknown device, descriptor request failed, error code 43.

• Drive did not load successfully.

• USB Device Not Recognized or Malfunctioned.

The reasons for Lexar USB flash drive not working or not being recognized are complicated in different situations. Therefore, to fix the problem thoroughly, you may need to try several ways to check out.

How to fix Lexar flash drive not recognized in different situations?

In the first place, you have definitely tried another port, a different USB drive, or a different computer to test if it is the problem with your Lexar USB drive. If it is a flawed or faulty flash drive, you can go to www.lexar.com, click on Support, and there you can chat with a Lexar agent for assistance with your Lexar drive.

Absolutely, you may want to try these fixes by yourself before contacting the professionals.

1. Enable USB ports in BIOS

First of all, you need to make sure that the Lexar flash drive is detected by the computer BIOS (the basic input/output system), so that it can be detected by an operating system. Here are detailed steps.

1. Shut down your computer, connect the Lexar flash drive to it, and power on. Find the “Pause Break” key on your keyboard and press it before the Windows logo appears.

2. Then keep pressing F8 or another hotkey to enter the BIOS setup. Go Advanced > USB ports with the arrow key.

3. In USB ports, select USB support – FULL Initialization. Also, check the “OS Type”.

Note that in some BIOS, you may need to go to Advanced > Onboard Devices or Integrated Peripherals and press Enter. Select “USB Controller” and press “+” or “-” to change the setting to “Enabled”.

4. Press F10 to save changes and exit. Restart your computer and check if the Lexar USB drive is detected.

2. Update USB device drive

One possible reason is that the USB device software is not up-to-date. You can try this method to get the latest USB drive.

1. Run devmgmt.msc as administrator.

2. In Device Manager, navigate to “Universal Serial Bus controllers”, usually the last one, and then “Generic USB Hub” > “Update Driver Software” or “Update driver”.

3. Select the first option “Search automatically for updated driver software” in the next step to let Windows install the driver automatically.

4. Wait for the process completes. You can restart or reconnect the Lexar flash drive to see if it is recognized.

3. Assign drive letter in Disk Management

In some cases, the flash drive won’t show up in Windows File Explorer. You may need to assign a drive letter to that drive and make it usable.

1. Press the Windows key + R to summon the Run box. Type diskmgmt.msc and click OK.

2. In Disk Management, find your Lexar flash drive (it may show up with unallocated space or asterisk) and right-click it.

3. Select “Change Drive Letter and Paths…” from the menu.

4. In the pop-up window, click “Change”. In the next window, choose a proper drive letter for your Lexar flash drive and click OK.

Usually, the operation will be executed immediately. But you may also receive a prompting message saying this operation may cause a program error. Mostly, it means the program in your drive may not work when the installation path or shortcut changes. Don’t be nervous if you only stored data on the USB drive.

4. Format Lexar flash drive with a correct file system

The unrecognized issue can also be caused by an incorrect file system. In general, a removable flash drive that is formatted with NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, or EXT3/4, etc. will be recognized by Windows 11/10/8/7. In addition, a corrupted or damaged file system can affect the recognition of the Lexar flash drive, too. A common error would be “The volume does not contain a recognized file system”. Thus, finding a professional USB formatting tool would be a good choice.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free USB formatting utility that you could rely on. It will help you solve the Lexar flash drive not recognized issue by formatting it with a correct file system. The aforementioned file systems are all available. Let’s get to know how to use it in simple steps.

1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click the unallocated space of the Lexar flash drive and select “Format Partition”.

2. In the pop-up window, specify the volume label, and choose file system and cluster size if you want to.

3. Click “Apply” in the toolbar and then “Proceed” to execute the task.

4. Wait for it completes. Close the program, reconnect the flash drive or restart to see if Windows could recognize the USB stick.

Further reading: How to recover data from recognized Lexar flash drive afterward?

Some users want to get their data back after formatting, or some of them even don’t want to format the drive at all. There are two advice here. One is sending a Lexar flash drive to the professional repair center in the very first place. The other is to try “Partition Recovery Wizard” of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, the advanced edition of the Standard edition.

It will help you recover lost or formatted partitions on the condition that there is no new data written. The format will rebuild the file system yet recover will get the files back. Here are specific steps.

1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. In the top toolbar, click "Recover" > “Partition Recovery”.

2. Select the lost partition and click on “Proceed”.

3. It is suggested to choose “Fast Search” first. If nothing is found, choose the “Full Search”. Click Next.

4. You’ll get the following window if recovery is completed. Click “Finish” to exit. You can check files in the formatted partition in File Explorer.

Conclusion

When you find Lexar flash drive not recognized in Windows 7/8/10/11, you can try those methods to remedy it. Make it recognized for another use or to get crucial data back. However, to protect important data, it is recommended to backup drive regularly.

AOMEI Partition Assistant has many other helpful features that could help you manage your computer well. For example, you could merge partitions without losing data to solve MBR primary partition number limitation and partition USB drives for different uses.