Calling any IT experts out there.
I have a memory stick with lots of files on it but since removing it from the pc last night now shows nothing on it and when I put it in the usb port it asks me if I want to format it.
I know if I say yes, anything on it will definitely get wiped but I'm hopeful I can recover what is on the stick.
The question is, how can I access what's there?
If I right click and view Properties it shows both free space and used space as zero bytes.
thanks
(moves across to computer related section)
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 15 Sep 12 at 00:26
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I do hope that the USB Stick doesn't contain the only copy of your files, because the prognosis is not good.
Two simple things to try;
insert USB stick. No to format.
Does it show up in windows explorer?
If yes, then right click, properties, tools, error-checking / check now
If no, does it show up in Disk Management? Windows Explorer / right click My Computer / manage / disk management.
If you can now see it, what is the display saying about it?
Right now, if you're getting nowhere, is the time to decide how important the files are. There are more options which become more and more work with less and less chance of success.
Did either of the above two function?
If not, do you wish to go further?
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 14 Sep 12 at 19:50
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They are programs like Recuva and photorec which are easy to use and may help. It is also worth trying it under Linux, I have recovered a lot of data from drives which windows can't read the NTFS file system but Linux strangely will.
You could even try chkdsk, but the safest thing to do now is try and read it under Linux.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Fri 14 Sep 12 at 20:00
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I remember him. Charlie Brown's mate right?
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Best friend. Older brother of Rerun.
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thanks all.
I ended up downloading some free software which will recover the photos and the Word/Excel files we used something we found on FaceTwitterTubeBook.
Panic over. Phew!
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what did you use? It got the photos off the memory stick?
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Yes, I'd be interested to know too. Could be useful for the future. Also curious about needing different tools for different filenames.
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FWIW I used a product call Image Recall 3 a few years back to recover some images from a formatted card. Worked a treat, but had to pay for the full version to do a deep scan, and recover more than a limited number of pictures. There could be good open source stuff out there now...
Looks like it's now Image Recall 5. www.imagerecall.com/
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I parked 69 pics on a stick temporarily, without keeping a copy on my PC. They can't now be accessed, by me or Jessops. I was later told on this site that this is likely to happen with removeable media.
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>>I was later told on this site that this is likely to happen with removeable media.
It will happen. Always. But its difficult to know when.
The truth is if you have anything at all important which only exists in one place, then you're taking a risk.
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>>It will happen. Always.
Why? - even if the stick is put away and not used again?
I have a 4gb usb stick that i use for storing various utility set-up programs on, so that I have them handy if I need to go and help a friend out. It has been deleted/cleaned/reformatted over half a dozen times now and still seems to be working perfectly. Does that mean that failure is imminent?
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It will fail at some point that's almost guaranteed. Why not have a copy of the files elsewhere.
I cannot understand how you can have files with intrinsic value that you don't keep at least a copy of somewhere. And then there's a risk you lose a file - replicate/copy a corrupted file and the copy is then lost too.
Flash memory has only a certain number of write cycles. For a flash drive that's going to be plenty before it brakes or you lose it. But simple file system corruption could lose you the data. That's the problem reported on here in the post. The memory stick might be fine physically but you can still lose files.
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>>It will happen. Always. But its difficult to know when.
>Why? - even if the stick is put away and not used again?
Yes. Basically, flash cells eventually leak their charge and the amount of leakage increases the more it is written/erased.
Consumer grade flash is typically good for a few thousand write/erase cycles but it's the file system metadata area that takes the most hammer so that's usually the area that fails first. Your data is still there but the filesystem doesn't know where it is.
Enterprise grade flash uses a different technology which doesn't leak as badly and the real capacity is typically three or more times the capacity presented to the system. The flash controller uses the unseen capacity and sophisticated algorithms to continuously even out the access patterns so that there are no hot-spots. It will still eventually fail though.
Never, ever, ever keep irreplaceable data on a flash drive alone. You will lose it.
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Right! thanks for the "heads up" chaps, I never realised!
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>> They can't now be accessed, by me or Jessops.
What have you tried to recover the files?
>> I was later told on this site
>>
on this site - Really? where/when?
Last edited by: John H on Tue 18 Sep 12 at 13:32
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This was all about 4 years ago and I can't recall the details but I do remember that an expert also failed.
The posting here was about the same time.
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>> This was all about 4 years ago and I can't recall the details but I
>> do remember that an expert also failed.
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>> The posting here was about the same time.
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This site did not exist four years ago!
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>> This site did not exist four years ago!
The underpinnings did though, and was just hosted on another site. Maybe that's where he meant?
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>> what did you use? It got the photos off the memory stick?
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I used two pieces of free software I found by Googling.
EaseUs Data Recovery Wizard. It recovers up to 1gb of data for free. Any more than that and you have to pay.
The other was CardRecovery which saves images such as Jpegs
Regards
TMWNN
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Do external hard disks qualify as removable media? If so, I have just had a demonstration of their unrealiability. My Maxtor has failed completely. It doesn't light up though there is no problem in the mains feed.
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*ALL* disks will fail. But you don't know when.
*ALL* storage media inact, tape, disk, flash, hatever *WILL* fail. But you don't know when.
If its important, you should not have just one copy.
The more important you believe it to be, the more copies you should have of it and the further they should be from each other.
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And yes, draiber, it sounds like hard disk failure. Sorry.
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>> Do external hard disks qualify as removable media?
Yes. And even internal drives can fail. Or get corrupt. WHich is why you need backups.
One issue with repeatedly copying from drive A to drive B is, if a file is corrupt you'll copy the corrupt file. But better than nothing.
Sounds like it might be a failed drive. But could be other things. Seems you've tempted fate with the questions.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Wed 19 Sep 12 at 17:21
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Help! -Corrupt memory stick - No FM2R
