Which program would be best to use?

[PatFar]

I have a corrupt flash drive that I can occasionally get the computer to recognize.  It has both documents and pictures on it, as well as database information.  when the comouter recognizes the drive it tells me the drive is empty, but if i look at "properties" it has no free space.

Which program will give me the best chance of getting my stuff off that flash drive??

 

[nukecad]

Could you tell us what make and size of drive it is?
Do you know what filesystem it has been formatted with? eg FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, etc. (Although that's probably not too important at this stage).

Where you bought it and how long you have had it may also be relevant.

(I'm suspecting that it may be a 1TB or 2TB thumbdrive bought off Amazon, eBay,  etc. - but I could be wrong).

 

 

[PatFar]

SanDisk 128mgb  3.0

Probably bought at BJ's

In use for around 5 years.

Used on Windows 8.1 computer

HP laptop

[PatFar]

Thank you So much for a reply!

[nukecad]

Great, so it isn't what I suspected it might be. (Those 1TB & 2TB thumbdrives sold at very low prices are fakes with only a fraction of that capacity and become unusable if you exceed their real capacity).

It could simply have failed after 5 years use, especially if it's in regular use.
Flashdrives drives don't last forever, they have a maximum number of write cycles.
More info: https://www.usbmemorydirect.com/blog/how-long-do-flash-drives-last-usb-drive-lifespans/

Could you post a screenshot of the properties, in particular showing what the File system is, eg:
You say that it shows zero Free space, but what does it show for Used space?
This is a working 2GB thumbdrive that is formatted to the FAT file system:

If however yours shows something like this:

Then that indicates that for some reason it has become RAW - ie. unformatted/unpartitioned. (No space used or free)
Although I would expect Windows to be asking you if you wanted to format it if that was the case.

Some third party partitioning tools can change a RAW partion to a useable partition without losing any data that is on the drive.
It's not something I've ever had to do, but here's the process in one such tool (there are others) - have a read of the article, there are various ways of doing it although some will lose the data: https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/convert-raw-to-ntfs.html

(Just as an aside: do you use Linux? If so is there any chance that you might have formatted the drive to a Linux format so Windows can't read it?)

If it isn't RAW (or if you convert the partition but lose the data) then you could give Recuva a try to see what it can find and get back from the drive, the Free version is all you need and does exactly the same job of recovery as the paid for version.
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva
https://support.piriform.com/hc/en-us/sections/360010251491-How-to-use-Recuva

 

[PatFar]

Oh, rats

Of course I have the second one you mentioned.....

On the one that lists Events" ... the whole lising was tthis, (in case it helps):

Device USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_SanDisk&Prod_Ultra&Rev_1100\AA00000000015302&0 was configured.

Driver Name: disk.inf
Class Guid: {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Driver Date: 06/21/2006
Driver Version: 6.3.9600.16384
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Section: disk_install.NT
Driver Rank: 0xFF0006
Matching Device Id: GenDisk
Outranked Drivers: disk.inf:GenDisk:00FF2002
Device Updated: false

 

[PatFar]

BTW ... I dont use Linux but it's interesting that you should mention that.  My neighbor was trying to convince me to let him try the flash drive on his computer with Linux.  I said it was formatted for Windows so I didn't want to risk potentially making things worse and then not being able to restore anything at all!!

[Andavari]

SanDisk doesn't offer or have any tools that can reinitialize/reinstate a drive putting it back into "factory new" like state with a working readable partition, etc., like what Transcend has with their free Jetflash Recovery Tool for their USB Flash Drives. And since it's a SanDisk one big caveat is on any Windows OS newer than WinXP (since old XP doesn't actually full format any of them) never full format a SanDisk since Windows will rather quickly kill the drive causing it to become either write-locked or actually completely killing the drives usability, seen it happen umpteen times.

[nukecad]

I doubt that Event is relevant, it's from 2016 which is presumably around when you bought it and you have been using the drive OK since then.

Interesting about your friend with Linux.
It might just be that he can read it, Linux can read Windows drives and being a different OS it may be able to see something that Windows can't.
If he can see the files then he can copy them off for you and put them on another Windows formatted drive, or up in the cloud, or email them to you, etc.
(PS. You can get apps for Windows that will read Linux drives, but it's not built in).

Other than that.
I think your best option is to see if partition wizard, or similar tool of your choice, can restore the file system without losing the data.
(It might be interesting to know what the tool says that it's formatted as currently, it must have some structure if Windows can give it a drive letter).

Or see if you can reformat it and then try to recover the data.

EDIT.
Thinking about it though - Windows can see the drive, it's given it a drive letter, so it might be worth seeing if Recuva can get any data off it as it stands before altering anything.
If you are trying Recuva then there's a section for it on this forum where experienced users can help if needed.

[PatFar]

So, then my next questions are...

Should I try Linux first?  Or Renova? Or partition wizard?   

Will using any of them potentially be most likely to render the flash drive unable to be used by any other of them, even if it doesn't recover files?   

Can I even trust the flash drive again, even if I am able to reformat it?  I'm guessing not, and that I'd have to toss it anyway.  

[nukecad]

Any way that you like.
Neither should cause any further harm as long as you don't try to write anything to the drive.

To avoid further dissapointment I'd regard the files as already lost, so anything that you might get back is a bonus.
It then becomes a question of how much time and effort you want to put into it.

Writing something new to the drive could overwrite what is still there meaning you then have no chance of getting it back.

At the moment Windows won't let you write to it anyway, it thinks there is no free space.
Recuva doesn't write to the drive it just scans/reads what it can. Partition wizard would write a bit but it should only be in the system part of the drive.
I can't speak for what your friend with Linux might try.

Like you I'd bin an unreliable drive and replace it, so at the moment it's just a case of seeing if you can recover any files off it first.
If you don't want to get back any of the files that were on it, or if you have backups of them, then I'd just bin it.

That's why it's always recommended to make regular backups of your files, either on a seperate drive or in the cloud.
It's much easier to copy files from your backup to a new drive than to try and get the original data back off a broken or infected drive.
Many go even further and make a regular 'mirror' backup of their whole system - Windows, installed apps, files, the lot - so it can all be restored if their main drive fails or gets corrupted/infected.
But even those who do make regular backups/mirors of the stuff on their computer often forget to also backup any original files that have only been saved on removable drives such as thumb drives.

[PatFar]

Thank you SOOO much for your guidance!!

[Andavari]

On 13/10/2022 at 16:53, PatFar said:

Can I even trust the flash drive again

Can't trust any USB Flash Drives in reality, far too often they can become write-locked/frozen, and they have such a low limited write cycle/life span if heavily used.