• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

USB flash drive - Have I lost my files?

Deetee

Illuminator
Deetee
Joined
Jul 8, 2003
Messages
3,789
I have some files on a 1G USB flash drive.
When I try to access it, I get the warning that "The disk in Drive E is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"
(I've tried on 3 different computers, so it must be a fault with the drive)

Are all my files irretreivably lost?
:(
 
You can pry the drive open and pour your files onto a new flash drive manually. Do it over a napkin or the sink as there may be spillage.

Actually, did you try a 2.0 USB port as well as an 1.1 USB port? Should work on both but it may be worth a try. Otherwise it does not bode well.
 
There's two possibilities that you can consider:
1. There's been a hardware failure. If you are lucky, it's just a pin or two come unstuck on the PC board in the USB stick. If you were here, we could pop that puppy open and have a look. That doesn't work real well through the internet.
2. Download Test Disk and Photorec and read the documentation thoroughly. First try TestDisk to see if it can recover the partitioning. If that fails, try Photorec and see if it can recover any of your files. It only recognizes a few specific files type, though, so it may not find your stuff.

Assuming that 2 helps, you need to be sure to always stop and eject your USB drive before unplugging it.

You might also look for commercial programs like testdisk and photorec - assuming they fail and your files are important enough to spend cash on.
 
Deetee said:
I have some files on a 1G USB flash drive.
When I try to access it, I get the warning that "The disk in Drive E is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"
(I've tried on 3 different computers, so it must be a fault with the drive)

Are all my files irretreivably lost?
:(
Click to expand...

I've done a bit of file recovery and computer forensics work in the past, and I can confirm that tools similar to what Zax63 mentioned are your best choice. Look for different file recovery tools, there are some that specialize in Flash Drives.

What has most likely happened is that a boot record on the flash drive has become corrupted.

What could have caused it? Excessive shock, i.e. you dropped it, but most likely someone has removed the usb drive from the computer without properly ejecting it first, or even worse, during file transfer.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add: most likely your files can be recovered. There's a bout 99% chance that it can be done.
If the files were really important, and you don't want to tinker yourself, use a service of a pro (look for data recovery services in a phone book or online). This will cost you though, so it depends on how important the files were.
 
Last edited:
My camera uses removable flash cards. After one whole weekend of shooting I had two cards go bad at the same time. They were quality cards from a name brand (Lexar) so I sent the cards to Lexar. They sent me two new cards and a CD with all the photos recovered, no charge. I like Lexar :)

The punch line? For some hard to explain reason I was in the habit of carrying a refrigerator magnet in the pocket of my backpack/camera bag. :jaw-dropp

My camera bag is now a magnet free zone.
 
Usually these are formatted for FAT32, which means that the file system is easily corrupted. If you are only going to use it on newer computers that use NTFS, then change it to NTFS. This file system is also compressible, so you get even more space without having to manually compress files. If you have to use it with Apple or other computers that don't support NTFS, then you can't do this.

My 20GB USB drive lost it's contents once with FAT32, with NTFS I haven't had a problem.
 
YoPopa said:
My camera uses removable flash cards. After one whole weekend of shooting I had two cards go bad at the same time. They were quality cards from a name brand (Lexar) so I sent the cards to Lexar. They sent me two new cards and a CD with all the photos recovered, no charge. I like Lexar :)

The punch line? For some hard to explain reason I was in the habit of carrying a refrigerator magnet in the pocket of my backpack/camera bag. :jaw-dropp

My camera bag is now a magnet free zone.
Click to expand...
Has absolutely zip to do with it. Flash is non-magnetic. It is affected by magnets about as much as a piece of wood.

If you had a Compact Flash drive with one of the miniature hard drives in it, then it is a different story.


I've used Test Disk several times to recover the file allocation tables on USB sticks. PC Inspector File Recovery has been somewhat less than useful in recovering files.
 
MortFurd said:
Has absolutely zip to do with it. Flash is non-magnetic.
Click to expand...
Another myth busted. :blush:

I've been told by airport screeners that the cards would be erased by the metal detector and that was why they had to go through the Xray machine. Next you're going to tell me that airport screeners aren't reliable IT authorities. :confused:
 
If you want to see if there's anything still there I would recommend Active File Recovery. It's pretty easy to use. It does a good job of recoverying files, even if the partition table or FAT is fubared.


Also it's decently cheap. There are other utilities that work well and can scan on a very low level, but this is the only good one I've found that is under $100+

http://www.file-recovery.net/order.htm
 
a_unique_person said:
Usually these are formatted for FAT32, which means that the file system is easily corrupted. If you are only going to use it on newer computers that use NTFS, then change it to NTFS.

My 20GB USB drive lost it's contents once with FAT32, with NTFS I haven't had a problem.
Click to expand...

He's got a flash drive, it's highly unlikely that your 20GB USB drive is a flash drive.
Although possible, it's highly recommended that you DO NOT format your flash drives with NTFS. Because of the nature of the filesystem, NTFS would cause great wear and tear on a flash drive, cutting it's life to about 30% of what you'd get using NTFS. Flash drives unfortunately have a limited amount of times information can be written to it before they die, and that number is much lower than what you'd get from a normal mechanical hard drive.

You should never use a journaling filesystem like NTFS on a flash drive.
Even if you're using FAT32 you should NEVER defragment a flash drive. You'll simply shorten the device's lifespan each time you're doing it.

Another thing about NTFS, if NTFS is used on a USB drive (not just a flash drive, but ALL USB DRIVES), then you absolutely MUST go through the annoing 'eject this usb drive' dialog each time you're removing the drive.

With NTFS yo might also get issues if you use hibernation and then add data to the removable drive before connecting it back and taking the box out of hybernation.

Also, if you use user owned files, permissions etc and move an NTFS filesystem around, the whole file mgmt might get quite difficult to handle.
 
Yes, the device I am using is a USB disk drive. However, I also did it with a flash drive. It's a toss up, less life for the device, but you can be sure the data won't be lost, or a shorter life, and you never know when it will just trash it. As it was, I lost the flash drive before it failed. (Well, I didn't lose it, my kids did).
 
MortFurd said:
Has absolutely zip to do with it. Flash is non-magnetic. It is affected by magnets about as much as a piece of wood.
Click to expand...


I did not believe this so I put a few files on a previously unused 16MB SD card then restedit on a magnet I pulled out of a hard drive for about 30 minutes. The files were all there when plugged it back in. :cool:
 
BenK said:
I did not believe this so I put a few files on a previously unused 16MB SD card then restedit on a magnet I pulled out of a hard drive for about 30 minutes. The files were all there when plugged it back in. :cool:
Click to expand...

I'm sure if you used a powerful enough magnet it would do something. I mean, with a powerful enough magnetic field, you could rip the molecules in it apart or compress it into a particle stream. So i doubt it's entirely impervious to magnetic fields. I know that they had a pulsed superconducting magnet at Los Alamos which did some crazy stuff. I'll betya it could destroy the data on a flashdrive....probably the drive as well
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom