lost data

[ericf19931]

does anyone know how to retrieve data that was lost due to a broken flash drive? recently, my cruzer micro broke for no reason. when i plug it in, the orange light just flashes once and then goes away. the sound still plays when i plug it in but the flash drive doesnt get recognized.

 

[ssc456]

It may be completely broke, my first suggestion would be something like puppy linux google this and download it, it is a live CD which you burn and boot into.

This shouldnt have any issued accessing the data on your drive if its still there.

I used this when i had a problem with my hardrive in Windows XP, Windows was telling me the hardrive was not formatted and wanted to format it and puppy linux accessed it with no issues.

this probably isnt the best solution so i welcome everyone elses suggestions.

 

[Everendless]

Ive had this happen to a 2 gig flash drive which had my Photography final presentation on it 2 days before the due date. I'm not saying this it the solution, but try plugging it into another computer. The problem with my flash drive ended up being that somehow, someone went into Device manager, and click 'Do Not Use This Device', So everytime it was plugged it, it was recognized, but not used.

Just an idea.

 

[ericf19931]

i tried on 4 different computers and the same thing happens though

 

[Indigo]

Puppy Linux is fine, I've heard of that solution before. Give it a shot if you can, but remember this:

USB Flash Drives are the new floppy disks. In my experience, they break almost as often, and people often (foolishly) put sensitive or crucial data ONLY on these devices. The key is to have your data on your system first, and flash second. Use Dropbox if you are paranoid about school work, but you should never use a USB drive as a permanent method for storage.

 

[ericf19931]

how would i use puppy linux to restore my data though

 

[Indigo]

how would i use puppy linux to restore my data though

Download & Burn the Linux distro of your choice, then boot your system to that disc. Once in the OS, you can try connecting the drive to the system, and if all else works fine, you should be able to see the files on it. Copying those over can sometimes recover data. Otherwise you might need to try a recovery program. There's a ton of them on download.com.

I'm pretty fond of this one myself: http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspector-Smart-Recovery/3000-2242_4-10066144.html