USB Recover Problem "parameter is incorrect"

[Help_Please]

I have a Lexar usb drive that my win 7 pc said had a problem so I clicked fix it. I later put some files on it and then removed it after selecting "safely remove". When I next went to use it, a message came up saying it wasn't formatted, would I like to format now, I clicked no and then tried to recover the files using Recova v1.38.504. An error message shows up in the lower left corner saying "The parameter is incorrect". There is no parameter setting in the options and selecting any of the other options has no effect. I get the same error message when I try recovering on my Vista laptop. I searched these forums and found only 1 post relating to this problem but the poster didn't give much info and he never got an answer to this problem. Hopefully, I've given enough info. Any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Augeas]

This has been raised before, and I experienced it once on a flash drive, but there doesn't seem to be an absolute reason or cure. I don't think that this is a Recuva generated message, but a problem with trying to access the drive. If the problem persists after a correct dismount/reboot/mount then I'd run a chkdsk against it.

 

My odd problem just went away. That's the sort of problem I like.

[Help_Please]

Thanks for the quick reply. Chkdsk says the file system is "raw" and that it doesn't work on raw. Is it raw because the section that points to the files is corrupt? If I were to preform a quick format, wouldn't the drive than look like an empty Fat drive and then I would be able to recover my data? Quick format doesn't over-rite data, does it?

 

My odd problem just went away.

I hope I'm that lucky. Wouldn't have to worry if I'd backed up, as it is now, I don't know if the drive had anything REALLY important on it.

[redhawk]

The partition table is damaged unfortunately Recuva cannot handle drives in this condition.

There are no freeware tools to recover from RAW drives however afaik DiskDigger lets you recover 1 file at a time and the demo version of DiskInternals Partition Recovery has the uncanny ability to rebuild the directory structure.

 

Whatever you do never format or even quick format your flash drive because this process still clears a fair amount of data at the start the disk.

 

Richard S.

[Help_Please]

Thanks redhawk, I'll give those a try.