USB Thumb Drive Lost all data.

[Ratty]

Ok, So i have an "Astone 2GB 80X" thumb drive. Today i opened up Matlab R2009a, loaded a file off of it, altered the file and went to save it only to find that the drive now had "no folders". (during this time i had not ejected the drive or removed it from the port, it stayed in the computer and somehow erased itself )
Upon trying to explore the drive i was unable to due to an error saying that the drive needed to be formatted in order to use.
I tried to use windows un-delete on the drive and it came up with nothing.
I am using a 64bit version of vista.
This drive contained important information and work on my thesis.
Any help on how to recover files?
I haven't formatted it yet as i am not sure if doing so would make it completely impossible to recover the data.
Should i format it and then re-run the windows un-delete program on it? would that work?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thankyou!!!!


"the undelete program can be downloaded here... http://www.winundelete.com/download.asp"

[Aboulaly]

you will need a data recovery program mate, like get data back, or recover my data, because once you format it, the undelete wouldn't do you any good

[Ratty]

Ok Thanks Ab,
I thought the program may not be recognizing the drive because it had yet to be formatted.
Ill give one of those programs a shot and let you know how it goes.
Cheers,
Ratty

[Zero Alpha]

Hi Ratty, This will have a high sucess rate depending whether the MFT/FAT is still legible if not recovery becomes difficult. Be very careful with any DIY advice you get.

If you want this done professionally with maximum success PM me.

[tristen]

Do NOT format the offending unit.
Get Data Back should work, but be aware that there is a FAT32 and NTFS version.
All the USB "thumb" drives I have encountered come pre-formatted using FAT32.
Get Data Back will not damage the drive.

It's good practice to store important information such as a thesis, on CD-Rom.
They are not expensive, so backup regularly and store in a safe place, preferably TWO safe places, at home and also with a friend.

[Philquad]

try pdr

power data recovery

[best4less]

PhillTheQuad thanks for the files mate

[Ratty]

Thanks Aboulaly and thanks PhilltheQuad.
I tried both resources with varying success.
Both programs managed to retrieve the same data, but unfortunately not the data i was looking for.
It seem to break up files into individual components.
oh well. I guess back to the drawing board for my lost documents.

It's good practice to store important information such as a thesis, on CD-Rom.
They are not expensive, so backup regularly and store in a safe place, preferably TWO safe places, at home and also with a friend.

I did have backups, just not in the last 3 days where i did a fair amount of work on it. Normally i have it on 4 separate drives but i hadn't updated them since Monday. But thanks for the advice anyway.

[Woodstock]

try Recover My Files ... worked a dream for SDCARD .. had same symptoms wanted to be formatted .. just ignore that ..use Recover My Files

[best4less]

Hey Ratty on the odd occasion i need to use this type of software i got the same results as you i got a heap of files that had the wrong file name and the wrong ext on the end

So all i did was make a copy of the restored data so i could play with it and i started to change the .dat to .mp3 or .doc to the one that i was looking for and sure enough i found it each time

I hope that makes sense

[Ratty]

Hey Ratty on the odd occasion i need to use this type of software i got the same results as you i got a heap of files that had the wrong file name and the wrong ext on the end

So all i did was make a copy of the restored data so i could play with it and i started to change the .dat to .mp3 or .doc to the one that i was looking for and sure enough i found it each time

I hope that makes sense

Interesting. Ill give it a try.
Cheers.