Recovering documents from memory flash drive

maxmordon

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Apparently while saving some documents on my flash drive, I pulled it too soon. Making it lose its format. Now, whenever I try to do anything with it, it tells me it has no format.

I have seen online dozens of programs for data recovery, but I am a bit suspicious. What do you recommend me to do? Which program do you think is the best?

Thanks in advance.
 

Matera the Mad

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I most often use an old free version of Handy Recovery. I think it might be available for download somewhere yet. Then there's PC Inspector, Drive Rescue, and Disk Digger, all available free, though Digger is now nagware (wants to be paid for and reminds you). As for the more commercial software, I don't know. I am the Queen of Free ;)

"Best" is whatever works under the circumstances.
 

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I’ve had some good experience with Piriform’s Recuva. But be warned:

  • If you unplugged your USB device too fast, the system has had noc chance to write all data to it. So something will definitely be lost!
  • Recuva can be set to make even more damage. So, in any case, do yourself the favour and read the documentation first!
In the meantime (or if Recuva cannot see the drive), do not try to write to it, or even reformat it. You might destroy even more of your valuable data. If the data on the device is very important, you might want to consider handing it over to a data recovery expert, or at least some friend who is extremely knowledgeable with Linux tools like dd. Ask them to make a raw copy first, and try to mount the copy and recover any data. (So if something fails, the original is still there for another attempt.)

In the future, be sure not simply to unplug your USB device, but use the »Safely remove hardware« function of your operating system before. (Linux and Windows have this, and I’m sure the Mac will also.)

Best of luck!
 
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I've never used a flash drive and I want to thank the OP for starting this thread and asking for help because this information posted in the question will definitely help me in the future when I do purchase and start using a flash drive. It's true what they say that we learn something new every single day. I am considering a 16 GB flash drive exclusively for my manuscripts because I love Dropbox but the problem with that is that it transfers the whole folder from one computer to the other and the computers that I borrow don't have that much hard drive space.
 

Lhun

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I am considering a 16 GB flash drive exclusively for my manuscripts because I love Dropbox but the problem with that is that it transfers the whole folder from one computer to the other and the computers that I borrow don't have that much hard drive space.
You're not going to produce 16GB of text, so just keep images or anything else out of that folder.

Addendum: For visualizing it, 16GB in text is (conservative estimate) something like 3 billion words.
 
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kuwisdelu

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I've never used a flash drive and I want to thank the OP for starting this thread and asking for help because this information posted in the question will definitely help me in the future when I do purchase and start using a flash drive. It's true what they say that we learn something new every single day. I am considering a 16 GB flash drive exclusively for my manuscripts because I love Dropbox but the problem with that is that it transfers the whole folder from one computer to the other and the computers that I borrow don't have that much hard drive space.

You're not going to produce 16GB of text, so just keep images or anything else out of that folder.

Addendum: For visualizing it, 16GB in text is (conservative estimate) something like 3 billion words.

As Lhun said, if you use a 16 GB flash drive for manuscripts, you're going to have an awful lot of empty space. The 2 GB from a free Dropbox account should be far more than enough for writing projects, and few modern computers except maybe a really, really light netbook will wince at that. (If you have less than 2 GB left on your HDD, very likely you should be deleting and moving stuff anyway.)
 
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You're not going to produce 16GB of text, so just keep images or anything else out of that folder.

Addendum: For visualizing it, 16GB in text is (conservative estimate) something like 3 billion words.


Everything that I know I don't need saved on that folder I just took it out of the folder and burned to a DVD. I can't predict what's going to happen in the future. Maybe I will produce 16 GB of text, maybe I won't. One thing I know for sure is that I could never back up enough. I need to have my important stuff in as many different places as I can. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I spent over an hour doing this, but it was worth it. I need an extra computer of my own, though, or a flash drive. I don't want anyone else getting into my stuff. That's why I am getting the flash drive anyway. I am not going to do Dropbox transfers until I get a secondary computer of my own that I know no one else is going to touch. Curiosity always kills the cat.
 

whacko

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Hey Max,

Is your flashcard recognised when you plug it in? If so, you can probably reformat it from Windows by using scandisk. Just remember to select the proper drive though.

Hey Mags,

A flashcard is like an external folder, sort of. Once you plug it in you can open it like any other window and treat it like any destination on your hard drive.

I use a 1GB card and it's plenty

Regards

Whacko
 
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As Lhun said, if you use a 16 GB flash drive for manuscripts, you're going to have an awful lot of empty space. The 2 GB from a free Dropbox account should be far more than enough for writing projects, and few modern computers except maybe a really, really light netbook will wince at that. (If you have less than 2 GB left on your HDD, very likely you should be deleting and moving stuff anyway.)

You are right. That's why I am going to use the Dropbox folder for my manuscripts and nothing else. CD's and DVD's are great for storing videos and music, so I don't need to put those on the Dropbox folder. I need to get some CD's for music. I now have like 744 songs. I burned them on to a DVD recently, but I have a CD player and if I want to listen to the songs on there I need to burn the songs onto CD's in audio format. As for having less than 2 GB left on my HDD, I will never, ever let it get to that point. That's why I am constantly burning files onto CD's and DVD's, to keep my hard drive as clean as possible.

Hey Mags,

A flashcard is like an external folder, sort of. Once you plug it in you can open it like any other window and treat it like any destination on your hard drive.

I use a 1GB card and it's plenty

Regards

Whacko

Thanks for the information. You guys are right. I will use external hard drives for huge files like videos and the flash drive for my manuscripts, and it doesn't need to be that big. 2 GB is fine. Like I said, it's important to have your stuff on as many different locations as possible because we never know what's going to happen.