Usb Flash Drive + Insert Disk

Hello,

I have a usb stick pen / flash drive that reports this issue when attempting to view its contents.

The drive was removed without the "safely remove usb" being done.

The message in the "Insert Disk"popup - which appears when clicking on the drive is:
"Please insert a Disk into Removable Disk (E: )"

So what happens is, click on it to open and the above message appears.


The usb flash / pendrive is a Lexar 8GB or possibly 16GB had it so long and unused until recently forgot its capacity.

The operating system I am using is Win 8.1/ 64bit

The E: USB flash drive can not be accessed so it seems.
There is no information on any contents, its size or file system..


What I have tried so far;

Under the My computer launched from the desktop the drive is listed, its allocated drive letter E:\

Right click "Properties" the usb drive shows as an empty drive? with no content files or FAT / NTFS .. (ouch)
Used Space 0 and free space 0

When I right click on the drive > "Tools" > "Check this drive for errors" I get a message saying;
"The disk check could not be performed because Windows cant access the Drive"

Going to computer management > disk management shows "Disk 1 removable no media"

Full most thorough scan (in safe mode) with most recent / updated Malware-bytes
I have tried allocating another drive letter.
Tried it in another usb port.
Tried it on another computer - O/S Win XP

All yield the same similar msgs with the same outcome, cant see any data or file system.. or any drive capacity.
sigh..

Tried updating the USB drivers and uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling
no good...

So I searched online for solutions.

I thought, if I can only recover the data!

However after much searching, I thought it safer to leave any recovery tools or other youtube fixes, such as use the "clean option in DiskPartition in cmd alone, as it seems to be for recovering the drive not the data.

I cant get any attrib on the drive ...hardly surprising since according to Windows it cant be accessed..

There was a solution I had viewed briefly about a change in the registry to allow the drive to be found ... changing a Value to "2" .. I have left that option alone as I dont want to cause more trouble ..than the fix...

I have tried a couple of free data recovery tools.
These seem a little confusing to me about which drive is which.. as it doesn't show with any drive capacity equal to the usb drives capacity.

... using CCleaner Tools > Disk Analyzer > (only selecting the Drive E: shows that the drive has
files ? see attached which shows 84Mb of free space and potentially some content still? Although it doesnt list any files.. (see attached pic)

The Device manager now shows under Drives "Memory bar" and as a "Mass storage device at the bottom of the device manager in the "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" (see attached pic)


So, I am wondering how do i proceed from here to recover the data?
What steps do i need to try next?

To be clear what is paramount is, I need the data from the drive and not the drive formatted for re-use.


Thank you for taking the time to read all this

 

Have a look over here.
https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/fix-damaged-usb-flash-drive.html

 

Thanks for the idea, but unfortunately the software, or any of the other steps in the link fail to see the drive letter, so it cant be selected for recovery. RiP

 

Hi

Well it was seen in the Devices and Printers as you suggested, the icon looked like an external drive.

However following the advice on trouble shooting brought up a msg along the lines of older USB device might or wont work in newer usb 3.0 port, which it had been inserted into several times previously.'

Thats about as far as the trouble shooting went.

I had already tried the drive on my old XP machine that was only USB 2 and tried it on this PC's other USB 2 port... no luck in reading the contents..

Its not looking to good.. I read another post about some one updating the firmware, but I cant seem to locate that even off the Lexar page. I tried one app from there and once installed said it was for only Lexar drives... Which incidentally was the USB Drives name before this issue occurred..

Hmm thinking this one might be for file 13..

 

I dont know if windows had an issue, decided to detect it as usb memory addon (like additional memory) and then locked the drive in that mode..

as a side note, I discovered the option on usb drives was set so it wasnt set for caching for quick release..

System ram hasnt changed and dxdiag reports the same amount of ram also.

Maybe it was old and that removing it with out using the safe to remove option was the last straw...

 

O.K

This one has taken up enough of my weekend. Can't get any further on it. think it's time to put it in the "not worth my time box".

Thanks for the replies / info.