Problems with data recovery on USB

Hi, I've got a Dane Elec usb drive which suddenly stopped working today, and has a lot of valuable data on it. I'm trying to recover the data, but the problem is I can't get any program I've used to recognise there is a drive there to recover from.

When I plug the drive in it appears in My Computer, but when I click on it I just get a message saying 'please insert a disk into drive J:'. Can anyone help?

 

What is your o/s? Is this another casualty of the vista auto fix for portable drives.

 

When this happens, what is the drive letter name the USB is picking up? Try going into computer management and changing the drive letter assigned to the drive.

 

It's on XP and vista. Unfortunately it's not drive management - I've tried changing it to a few unused letters, but with no change.

I've contacted a couple of places who claim they can definitely fix it, but for nearly £300 which I'm reluctant to pay if there's an alternative. Any other ideas?

 

yeah I had a data recovery problem like this last month. I was going to use http://www.acrdatarecovery.com/ which looked good but in the end I didnt bother, as I got enough of the data back myself. They seemed to have a good rep, but price, i dont know.

 

How did you recover some of the same data? At the moment I can't access anything at all. Quite alot of it is backed up but there are some files I really want - if I could get even some of them back myself that would be brilliant.

I've found a couple of places which will recover it all for around £300 - I'm in two minds whether the data is worth as much as that to me...

 

My situation was slightly different. I needed to recover some word files that had become corrupted after an XP system refused to allow me to safetly remove the usb stick, and then destroyed the file structure when I removed the stick. I used a recover program to get the word data back, I cant recall the name but will dig around if it is of use, and it pulled back most of the data, but all the formatting was gone. However, the files were dual latin script and pinyin and chinese characters and the latter two information sets were pretty much destroyed, but I could replace that data myself later so did not bother with the data recovery. 300 sounds the high end of usual, but it depends where you are based. I got an estimate of about 100 quid here, a 50 quid 'evaluation charge' and then a quote for work.

 

Sorry should have said, the corruption of the file was simply it could not be found by word. First step was getting anything to recognise the infernal thing which I did using this recover program.

 

That does sound a bit different, but my current problem is getting anything to recognise the drive as well. If you could remember the name of the program you used I'd be extremely grateful.

 

I think I used recovery toolbox for word http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/word.html

 

However, even though this is .ru this is probably of more use to you http://soft.necromancers.ru/prog_40832.html or http://www.findapp.com/thumbdrive-recovery-d21507.html

 

Hello,

As the drive is external, I would assume that the first thing to check is the USB to IDE or SATA converter.

Do you feel OK putting the drive in a computer rather than an external case?

 

Am I missing something? I though this is a pen drive so where does the IDE/SATA converter come in?

 

Sounds worth a try. I've got a ubuntu 8.04 live cd, but it asks me for a login and password. I've no idea what they might be!

 

Thanks. I'm away from home for a few days, but I'll give it a try when I get back.

 

I have a Dane-Elec 8GB USB. It has given me nothing but problems. I have downloaded to it in the begining with no problem(s). Then suddenly a power outage, every file changed to Alien code. Nothing was readable. I reformated the USB. It started working again. Now it is not even recognized in any computer/laptop. It will not allow me to reformat it or access anything. HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! As I live on a island with not much entertainment,The USB is mine! Movies, music, pictures of family and my Dog! Okay.... a full free copy of a repair/recovery tool that will help me. Please and Thanking you in Advance. I will be awaiting your response.

 

I had the demo of this program and it did absolutely nothing. Just was still on my laptop. Did absolutely nothing but take up space.:major

 

Because this thread is so old, you should have created a new topic and not posted to this one.

You can try MiniTools Power Data Recovery (easy). It will let you retrieve 1GB or data for free. The previous 6.5 version was free for home use and could retrieve unlimited data. Maybe you can Google for that version. You may also want to try PhotoREC (somewhat difficult). Do not recover the data back to the USB flash drive or you will corrupt the data. Recover to your hard drive.

PhotoRec Step by Step

Minitools recovery of USB data

 

I don't really care about the content of the recover, I would really just like to clean it all off, as I can get my sister to resend the family and my dog photos again. I just want to beable to download to it. As I only have access to a Computer at work right now and when I go home for the weekend or evenings, my DVD play has a USB driver/mp3 port where I can watch movies or listen to music. Can you tell me how to clean it and make it work again properly. Please and Thank you

 

When you have the USB connected, can you see it in My Computer.