'Device not ready' error. Please help!

Recuva
1

Hi,

A very long story made short, I have accidentally deleted approx 2TB worth of data!

I haven't overwritten the data on the drives with new data yet, so I downloaded and installed the Recuva program, and after a day of scanning, the program gave me a green light to recover all of all the files I deleted.

The problem is that the program won't recover the files...It returns an error message 'Device not ready'.

Is there a known fix for this?

I was running an earlier version of Recuva when this happened, and have since installed the latest version, and am currently scanning again.

I'm quite happy to pay for this program, but if it simply can't do what it claims to do, why would I purchase it just so I can get support?

Please help. Take it on good faith that I will purchase the product if my problem is solved.

I need a good long term solution for file recovery...

Thank you kindly

Specs...

XP Pro...

2TB HDD via external 3.5" USB dock...

2

Please do not double post. You seem to need help with this problem hence a bug report is not appropriate at this stage.

You have an option to pay for support. Please do not confuse this with purchasing the product which is free of charge.

I cannot advise how to fix your problem with above limited info.

I would suggest that you could speed up resolution by providing further details, especially :-

Has your XP got SP3, and 32 or 64 bit ?

Was the data lost from the "2TB HDD via external 3.5" USB dock..." or some other place ?

Was it all in one partition ?

Is that partition now empty ?

Was it formatted NTFS ?

What make and model was the drive.

Please post a screen snapshot of the error message in-case it comes from the operating system and not Recuva.

Perhaps you have a problem with your USB Hub/ports.

I do not know if this is relevant, but some make/models are "Green" and go power saving.

This sometimes results in the device becoming unready after a period of no data transfer for a few seconds.

Disasters have happened and HDD firmware fixes have been required.

I am unlikely to be able to use the above answers myself, but your answers may help others.

Do not try to restore files to any partition(s) that you have lost data from.

If necessary buy yourself another HDD..

3

There have been many instances of this, you could try searching the forum for Device Not Ready and going through the responses.

I've had it on occasion in the past (when else?). It just seemed to go away. Some users have said (as Alan intimated) that the disk sometimes 'sleeps' after a period of inactivity, and a prog restart and rescan works, Unfortunately with such a large disk you might get the same problem again.

4

Please do not double post. You seem to need help with this problem hence a bug report is not appropriate at this stage.

You have an option to pay for support. Please do not confuse this with purchasing the product which is free of charge.

I cannot advise how to fix your problem with above limited info.

I would suggest that you could speed up resolution by providing further details, especially :-

Has your XP got SP3, and 32 or 64 bit ?

Was the data lost from the "2TB HDD via external 3.5" USB dock..." or some other place ?

Was it all in one partition ?

Is that partition now empty ?

Was it formatted NTFS ?

What make and model was the drive.

Please post a screen snapshot of the error message in-case it comes from the operating system and not Recuva.

Perhaps you have a problem with your USB Hub/ports.

I do not know if this is relevant, but some make/models are "Green" and go power saving.

This sometimes results in the device becoming unready after a period of no data transfer for a few seconds.

Disasters have happened and HDD firmware fixes have been required.

I am unlikely to be able to use the above answers myself, but your answers may help others.

Do not try to restore files to any partition(s) that you have lost data from.

If necessary buy yourself another HDD..

Double posting was a result of not knowing for sure if it was a bug or not, so please don't assume you know the reasons why I double posted...I have solved my problem by installing the latest softare. As it turns out, it was a bug in the previous version. I would hazard a guess in that it has something to do with it being a larger than 1TB HDD.

The changelog reveals a fix for this, so putting two and two together seems to have fixed it this time, I couldn't find a fix for others having the same problem in this instance either, so hopefully this helps others with the same problem if they are experiencing it.

Thanks for the feedback

5

I'm getting 'device not ready' when I try to recover a file that has been detected by scan using the Free version of Recuva v1.42.544(64-bit) with Win7 Home Premium SP1. The state of the file is 'Excellent'.

The file I'm trying to recover is on a 1TB external, USB-connected HDD. I'm trying to recover it to C:\.

Which 'device' is not 'ready'? Source HDD or target HDD? Other?

What is meant by 'not ready'?

HELP!!!

George