Tom's Hardware > Forum > Applications > Security, Utilities, Anti-Malware > USB Drive Data Recovery
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sodaburst   07-06-2009 at 05:32:21 AM

Simple question (I think) -

I have a 15gig USB drive that for whatever reason is giving me the "the file or directory is corrupted or unreadable" message.

I don't have a check disk utility I can run and figured my next best bet would be to try a data recovery ap.

Anyone have any suggestions for a free ap that could help me recover my data?

My grad school project must be saved

TIA for any suggestions


Message edited by sodaburst on 07-06-2009 at 05:39:02 AM
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btk1w1   07-06-2009 at 03:51:46 PM
- 0 +

Zero Assumption (freeware) might just be the tool you are after.

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Z [...] overy.html

Designed for removable media, esp flash drives.

As an aside, a quick question. You didn't happen to get your USB flash drive off eBay?

I ask because there have been many scams involving USB flash drives which claim to be greater capacity than they actually are. What the sellers do is flash the firmware so your pc sees the capacity as what they specify. For example they can tell a 2gb flash drive to appear as 8gb in yours, or any pc.

The reason I am telling you this is that once the real capacity on one of these has been reached, the USB flash drive will actually corrupt data trying to fit more on the drive than it's capacity can handle.

Hopefully you will be able to recover your data. Once you have done this or you have exhausted all your avenues of data recovery you can run an application to view the real capacity of the flash drive and verify whether or not it has been tampered with.

The first link is a write up about the flash drive scams:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Do [...] ive-Scam!/

The second link is to verify the flash drive capacity:

http://www.instructables.com/id/ST8TU0SFA190TEC/

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sodaburst   07-06-2009 at 05:31:50 PM
- 0 +

Thanks for the quick response btk1w1. Out of desperation, I tried Recuva last night and though it took forever (5 hours) to scan my drive. I was able to save just a few files. (Not nearly enough of them.) :(

I'd try Zero Assumption but it seems as though that's only for images and my files are mostly documents, pdf's and powerpoint presentations.

To answer your other question, I got my drive at Microcenter, where thy supposedly have a lifetime warranty (on which I will now be capitalizing). Based on your info, I'll check it's true capacity as well. Thanks Again. . .I'll post my results shortly.


Message edited by sodaburst on 07-06-2009 at 05:34:38 PM
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btk1w1   07-06-2009 at 10:54:50 PM
- 0 +

Of course, I used it a while back to recover precious photos from a friends corrupted HDD.

If you bought the flash drive from a reputable retailer it is probably legitimate. Don't use the program to verify the flash drive capacity until you have exhausted your options at file recovery as it writes to the drive (it will overwrite data) and will make the chances of file recovery less likely.

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btk1w1   07-06-2009 at 11:10:21 PM
- 0 +

I had a look at SnapFiles (my preferred trusted software site) and there appears to be a very good flash drive file recovery program. The user reviews are very good (although they recovered images)

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/P [...] overy.html

I done a bit of research and the other formats also include .pdf extensions but alas doesn't say anything about .ppt or .pps extensions. It could be worth a try though.

Reply to btk1w1
techtiger4   07-11-2009 at 12:34:41 PM
- 0 +

Do not worry dear. Use Nucleus's data recovery software, which takes less time to recover data from damaged USB drive. Link for the software is - http://www.nucleustechnologies.com [...] tware.html

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