Why Is My Flash Drive Blinking Red? How to Fix the USB?

User case: Why is my flash drive blinking red?

Flash drive blinking read with the occurrence of USB device not recognized on Windows PC may be an unfortunate sign. It generally means that the error could potentially wipe out your stored data. However, there are still some methods that can save your external hard drive and data. In the next sections, we will share you with how to fix flash drive blinking red or blinking abnormally.

What does it mean if the flash drive blinking red?

If a flash drive blinking red, this could mean the drive has a hardware failure, has corrupted data, or is not properly connected to the computer. In some cases, it may also signal that the drive is in use or that there is an error with the USB connection.

Not all blinking indicates problems; sometimes, it just means something wasn't done correctly. Some fixes can solve the issue easily:

1. When your flash drive is blinking in a uniform motion.
2. When your flash drive is constantly on, as it is supposed to be.

However, you should be careful if:

1. Your flash drive starts blinking faster or suddenly stops blinking.
2. Your flash drive is blinking red or showing a red light, which is not its normal color pattern.

In such cases, it is better to recover your data as soon as possible to prevent it from being overwritten.

How to fix USB flash drive when it is blinking abnormally?

Here are 5 methods for fixing USB flash drive when it is blinking red or abnormally.

Fix 1. Check and Try Another USB Port

When the USB flash drive blinking red, it might be a problem with the USB port on your computer. For starters, you can check your USB connection. Just pull the USB drive out of the port and then back in. You could also try a different USB port. After doing that, check to see if it starts working right again.

Fix 2. Remove Viruses or Malware

USB flash drive blinking red can be caused by viruses or other malware. To fix this, you can remove virus or malfare and fix any other problems that might arise. You can check for possible threats on your device with virus and threat protection in Windows Security.

Step 1. Press “Win + I” to openWindows Settings. Then click Update & Security>Windows Security>Virus & threat protection.

Step 2. On the Virus & threat protection screen, click the “Scan options” button.

Step 3. Select “Full scan” and click “Scan now” to begin the scanning process.

Fix 3. Format the flash drive

there is a high possibility that the USB drive will not show in Disk Management or File Explorer, or you may receive the message "the format did not complete successfully.” So, it is better to directly use a reliable third-party tool like AOMEI Partition Assistant.

To format the flash drive blinking abnormally and not working or detected, you can follow these steps. But before beginning,  you should recover important data from the flash drive if necessary because formatting will delete everything on it. This method is also applicable for fixing SD card, HDD, SSD, and other common external hard drives.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

Step 1. Download, install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the flash drive and select “Format Partition”.

Step 2. Choose a proper file system based on your requirements, and click “OK”.

Step 3. Back to the main interface, click “Apply" to execute the pending operation.

Fix 4. Modify Registry

Modifying registry sometimes works for the flash drive not recognized issue. Below is how to do this step by step.

Step 1. Press "Windows + R" at the same time to open the Run box. Type "regedit" or "regedit.exe" and click "OK" to run the Registry Editor window. 

Step 2. Then choose “File”> “Export” to back up the registry.

Step 3. Open the key containing the item you want to modify.

For example: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Step 4. In the results that appear on the right pane, locate the “UpperFilters” and “LowerFilters” values.

Step 5. Right-click on each of them and choose “Delete”.

Finally, close the registry editor and restart your computer to see if deleting the UpperFilters and LowerFilters registry values solves the flash drive blinking but not recognized problem.

Fix 5. Update or Reinstall the USB Driver

To fix USB flash drive blinking red or corrupted, you can update or reinstall the USB driver. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Right-click on the Start button and select Device Manager.

Step 2. Scroll through the Device Manager menu and expand the Universal Serial Bus controllers section then Right-click each entry and select “Uninstall device”.

Note: You can try the “Update driver” option at first, if it’s not working, you can try to uninstall and reinstall.

Thereafter, unplug your USB device from the PC. Wait for a while, and then connect the USB drive to your PC again.

How to recover lost data when the flash drive blinking red?

"My Lexar flash drive blinking red, should I recover the data now?" Yes! It is time to recover data as soon as possible, or you may lose the data forever once it is overwritten. AOMEI Partition Assistant provides Recover Data function. It supports recovering more than 200 types of files from complex data loss scenarios. No matter you accidentally delete data, suffer virus, format the drive without backup, encounter system crashes, or other situations. It will get your data back.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

Step 1. Open and run the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant. Find "Recover" > “Recover Data” in the main interface.

Step 2. Select the partition location in the pop-up window, and then click “Start Scan”

Step 3. After scanning, you can find that all the deleted files, recycle bin and other lost data show up. Choose the target data, and click “Recover”.

Step 4. Select the folder path to reserve the restored data.

Step 5. Wait for the process patiently till it shows the Completion icon. Now, you can find that the selected files have been recovered successfully.

Conclusion

Why is my flash drive blinking red? This passage gives you the explanation and 5 fixes. You can find that AOMEI Partition Assistant can not only help you to fix red light on USB flash drive, but also can recover the lost data. In addition to this, it even supports cloning the corrupted external hard drive if you want to upgrade a new flash drive, effectively managing Windows partitions, extending drive space, and so on. For Windows Server users, it offers the AOMEI Partition Assistant Server edition.