My flash drive suddenly stopped working, how do I recover the data on it?

There are companies who offer USB data recovery services. It can be done if you're willing to pay enough. I once had a hard disk that died completely and my latest backup was 4 months old. The tech folks at Geek Squad were not able to recover it. But they recommended a local forensic data recovery specialist and he was able to do it, for an exorbitant price, but it was worth it to me. I learned my lesson: back up more often! I can highly recommend this guy (in Vancouver, BC): Simon Feay at Aceon Data Recovery (ace-data-recovery.com). There are others, if you need a place local to where you live. Do a Google search for "USB data recovery" plus the name of the nearest major metropolitan area to you. A personal recommendation is better than finding some random place on the Internet, so ask around. A USB drive is small enough that you could probably mail it to a data recovery specialist. If the data is gone to you anyway, the risk of sending it in the mail might be worth it. Simon Feay is really the best around (at least in Canada). He's the only one West of Toronto who is trained and certified in "white room" techniques.

If the flash drive works after a quick format, Recuva can sometimes recover some data. It is free.

I wonder if Spinrite would work on flash drive.

DO NOT USE SPINRITE ON A FLASH DRIVE. Spinrite is specifically designed to recover and exercise magnetic media like traditional hard drives. In part it does this by writing to it - a lot. It will almost surely trash a marginal flash drive, and seriously shorten the life of a working one.

20-Nov-2009

The problem is usually the file system.

First do nothing else with the drive or you risk overwriting files that may be able to be recovered

I have had several flash drives fail and using free utility photorec from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

have been able to recover most if not all the files from a failed flash drive.

the utiity above will bypass the file system and try to recover underlying blocks of data. it recognizes familiar file formats, and will attempt to put the files back together on another drive --

one caveat -- it will save files as file01.jpg file02.jpg file01.doc file02.doc etc. since its bypassing the file system.

better to have to rename files than having no files.

another caveat -- there are some files that will not be recovered.

good luck

I lost a flash drive last week. Luckily I only used it for transfers, copying stuff from on commputer to another from hoe to work and vice versa. I brought it back to the shop and got a new one as it had a 10 yea guarantee. Thet's what surprised me. If they are so vulnerable, how can they have a 10 year guarantee? I think the manufacturer realizes that only 1 person out of a hundred actually keeps the receipts. So reul number 1: never keep fewer than 2 (better 3) copies of your data 2:save receipts. 3: If your data is important (almost always the answer is yes)have an off site back up. I use or have used and recommend Drop Box (2gb) GMail (7.3 gb, email in small encrypted files using Truecrypt) Yahoo mail (unlimited or so they promise) If you need more storage than they offer, open another account.

As I said, there's also a wide range of quality in flash memory - so I could see a flash drive lasting 10 years "in normal use". They probably also define "normal use" such that things like dropping your Windows swap file onto the flash drive would probably void said warrenty.

21-Nov-2009

I have recovered all the data from a failed usb drive by using easeuse data recovery. You can download a free copy which will look at your drive and display what it finds. If you can see your stuff the prog can recover it. You will be asked to purchase the prog about $30 but there are a few free versions of it about.

No ones mentioned to click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" button in the taskbar before removing your memory stick, it's recommended !!

I had a friend who lost all his photos on a memory card. A professional company said it was gone forever. I tried to recover it with PC Inspector Smart Recovery only to be told that the card was unreadable. I then formatted the card and the program was then able to recover all the pictures. Perhaps a reformat before trying a recovery program may be the answer here too.

EASEUS data recovery worked perfectly for me also, it recovered a 1TB hard drive (400gb of actual data at the time) i had which was accidentally formatted (quick format). it took overnight to 'scan deleted files' but i got everything back.

For a usb device, you could try a QUICK FORMAT and then use a freeware/EASEUS program to 'find deleted files'.

if you aren't too technology savvy, try find someone who is to assist.. if the data is that important to you/confidential.

all the best :)

A simple way for backing up something really, really critical (say, a book you're writing)? Just e-mail yourself a copy from time to time to an account that uses a different storage location (say, online, or to your work e-mail address). You can even set up a rule wizard there to keep those e-mails in a separate folder so you can quickly search back thru them if ever needed. It's not a good solution for whole-computer backups, but it works great if you do that with family photos as you take them, or with something like a thesis or book.

Computer service techs have known about this for as long as the drives have been available. They always keep a spare duplicate drive in the bag for when they plug in only to discover the USB front port was wired backwards... snap, crackle and pop!

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