In this paper, a fault diagnosis algorithm for brushless DC (BLDC) motor drives is proposed to maintain control performance under switch open-damage. The proposed fault diagnosis algorithm consists of a simple algorithm using measured phase current information and it detects open-circuit faults based on the operating characteristic of BLDC motors. The proposed algorithm quickly recovers control performance due to its short detection time and its reconfiguration of the system topology. It can be embedded into existing BLDC drive software as a subroutine without additional sensors. The feasibility of the proposed fault diagnosis algorithm is proven by simulation and experimental results.