USB Flash Drive recovery

[meine]

I can no longer access the information stored in my USB flash drive since every time I try to access it I get asked to "reformat the drive." Apparently, someone disconnected the drive without properly ejecting it, but the point is, is there any way I can get this information? Is there some type of free ware recovery tool I can use? (I've checked several applications online but they're all payware/limited shareware and I was not able to retrieve any data.)

Your feedback is appreciated.

[jwenting]

nothing free AFAIK. And no guaranteed success with commercial offerings either (impossible to give anyway).
What sometimes works is putting it into a computer with another operating system, sometimes those can still read something.

Failing that, if it's under warranty, put out a support call with the manufacturer.
Sandisk I know will often offer to try to retrieve information from damaged devices when replacing them, maybe others do as well.

[loki]

I have found several free ones before, though I'm at work and don't remember the names of all of them.

Here's one:

http://www.recuva.com/

And this link has some more.

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/sy...arecovery.html

[meine]

jwenting, I have already tried accessing my drive from both XP and now Vista and it has not worked.

loki, I downloaded Recuva and Restoration, tried them both and they could not find anything. I reformatted the drive to see if the information can be accessed and still no luck....

[loki]

Don't do anything else to the drive, or you won't be able to get anything back at all. There are free recovery apps that can get the data back, I just don't remember which ones at the moment. Have a look through some of the other ones in the link I posted.

A commercial one that I found works well is Zero Assumption Recovery. It does cost $50 though, but you would have it for any future problems.

http://www.z-a-recovery.com/

[meine]

Well I've tried more than 8 different programs; from the ones you've sent me I've tried: PC inspector, UndeletePlus, Recuva, and Restoration, plus several others I have tried before, but all to no avail.

Thanks anyway...

[loki]

Give the Zero Assumption Recovery trial a go. Many of the more basic recovery apps won't find anything if the drive was reformatted. Zero Assumption could still find the files however. Ontrack Easy Recovery is another one that I just remembered. Once again though, it is a commercial app.

[meine]

Hey loki. I tried the Zero Assumption trial, and after running it several times I got a notice along the lines: "drive might be beyond repair" etc and I also tried EasyRecovery, but no cigar...I guess I shouldn't have reformatted it.

[loki]

That sucks. I think the original problem must have been pretty bad before you even got to the reformat.

Reformatting is basically like going into a library, clearing out the card catalogue but leaving all of the books alone. When a new book comes in the librarian creates a new entry in the catalogue and just sticks the book on a shelf. If there was a book in that space, it just gets thrown aside. However, you could still find all of the original books, you would just have to go through each shelf book by book (which is what Zero Assumption Recovery and Easy Recovery do). Your reformat should have left everything on the drive, even if Windows doesn't know it's there.

The above also explains why reformatting is not very secure on it's own, and why there are many security apps that do things like write zeroes and ones to the entire drive.

Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.

[meine]

Yeah, I don't trusts flash drives any more, I was able to retrieve my information (some years ago) from a floppy drive- which were a lot more sensitive (supposedly) to magnetic effects and other interferences. Thanks for the links anyway.