Everything on my USB flash drive just dissapeared..

[d3v]

Hi all.

So I backup my customers data in a Live DOS enviorment to my 8gb Corsair Flash Voyager USB stick, reformat Windows XP SP3, then stick the drive back in and proceed to move his files back on to his newly formatted laptop, but then halfway through the transfer I get "x file is corrupt and cannot be copied" or something along those lines, so I just thought it was XP's 24 character length limit problem so to circumvent this OS limitation I load up a Live DOS disk expecting to resume transfering his data, and when I clicked on My Computer instead of seeing the usual "Flash Voyager" drive name, I get the generic "Removable Disk" designation. I thought that was odd and I click in to the drive and was horrified to find that it was devoid of all files/folders.

My heart was racing, but I clicked on to the drives properties and realised the display shows me that there is indeed data on it - 5.52gb actually. But the folders and files are nowhere to be seen! I've attatched a pic to show what I mean...

BY THE WAY that FOUND.000 folder was created after I completed an Error Check on the thumb drive, which did not fix the problem and instead just created the said folder containing many hundreds of CHK files. This folder weighs 83mb so it is not the whole 5.52gb that "is" on the thumb drive.

I have tried using 3 or 4 partition and file recovery programs in Live DOS, but non of them have been succesful in recovering the "lost" data.

There is someones very important data on it so I must try my best to get it back safely! PLEASE HELP PLEASE!!

[DKT27]

I feel partition table is corrupted or similar. Try TestDisk or there also a Norton product that can help to recover. Oh well I think it's called norton partition magic or somethin. Not sure though.

[LeetPirate]

Try another pc incase the drivers on that one are corrupt. It happen before with my Sandisk titanium, it was a nightmare to fix that. Hopefully yours will be easier.

[d3v]

I feel partition table is corrupted or similar. Try TestDisk or there also a Norton product that can help to recover. Oh well I think it's called norton partition magic or somethin. Not sure though.

Thanks for telling me about TestDisk, It is a sweet program. parition magic dosn't even recognize my USB drive!

TestDisk is returning the following result of which I cannot make any sense of. I've read the guide on it's Wiki page but still cannot make head or tail of it!

I'm using the USB drive in my PC now and no difference LeetPriate.

[HX1]

Check and see if your USB hardware is bent.. like possible with some sort of torsion.. I have seen this happen before.. and I have also seen the drive not being read appropriately, because of driver error.. odd thing and can happen while its sitting in the port..You also may want to check and see if there is a recovery software like R-Studio.. where it can try to search for any data.. thats independent of File Table..sad thing is that is any writing has been done in anyway on the drive it can corrupt the data that can be there..

There is also a disk repair software that can help... I just have to remember what it is..

EDIT: You may want to try other drives and maybe even check t see if it will read when booting with BartPE.. ( sounds odd but have seen it work ) Then pull the info off..

[d3v]

GREAT NEWS

After hours of reading and tinkering with the TestDisk program, I finally managed to recover the data from the thumb drive using PhotoRec which was bundled with the official TestDisk download.

:)

I spent hours organizing his data in to category folders becuase PhotoRec recovered the data in to 20 folders named "recup_dir.x". 1.7gb... that is the size of the remaining customers data !!! :D

THANK YOU DKT YOU SAVED MY ASS AND MY CUSTOMERS!

all of the files came out in a weird naming format, I guess becuase the MFT gets kills along with the partition table???

Looks like he's going to have to spend an awful lot of time re-naming and re-organizing all that lot...

[d3v]

Truth be told this particular USB stick has had quite a few problems in the past and I've only had it a few months. Piece of shit or what?

what can I do to improve the reliability of it?

What software will allow me to completely purge the entire contents of the stick. 5 passes should do it.

[Night Owl]

Maybe you could try reformatting the USB flash drive, then run CHKDSK /R on it? (The /R switch locates bad sectors and recovers readable information).

To completely purge the contents of a drive, you could use Windows Sysinterals SDelete v1.51. The -p switch specifies the number of overwrite passes.

[DKT27]

@d3v: You are welcome. It's not the first time I've seen anyone havin the problem. But really important thingy. Do check if the files are not broken. Open them surf them and tell me.

[d3v]

DKT27 the files are indeed fully functional. I checked many many of them randomly throghout, and they are all 100%. The only thing is the names of them! He's gonna go crazy re-organizing all this lot. There's nearly 4000 various files :fear:

Night Owl thanks for the links, I did the e: chkdsk /r which did it's thing, now I'm using that awesome sdelete...

With any luck, I should have a much more healthy and reliable USB drive!

Thanks everyone :wub:

[DKT27]

Well it's obvious that they would be named like this. I don't know how to fully describe it though.

More harder you work, more better fruits you earn/get. ;)

[igersh]

D3V, I also work in fixing other people's computers and have to save customers' data all the time. However, I've already had 2 USB flash discs that burnt down. I NEVER use a USB flash drive to store important data on it, especially if it belongs to a customer of mine. For that purpose I use a hard drive, which has NEVER yet broken down and is very reliable. Usually (if it's not a laptop we're talking about), I attach this hard drive directly to the motherboard of a customer's PC, because it's an inherently internal hard drive, and, if I fix a laptop, I connect my hard drive externally by using a USB-to-IDE adapter.

[HX1]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the file security data streams accompanying NTFS Volumes and data written to it.. when moving it over to a FAT32 or other? I mean for the most part there usually is not a problem.. but with data of this nature I could see where it may become an issue..

[d3v]

@igresh, thanks for your input. I used to use a WD MyBook but it died on me after just 2 months, I then used an old IDE drive wrapped in anti-static bag, but that died after 3 weeks. Now I use a combination of another IDE drive wrapped in anti-static bag, and this corsair USB drive.

By the trend of things it's only a matter of time when one of these little bastards fails me, or both!

When I have the money I will get a good SATA drive, test the hell out of it for a few nights, then if it seems reliable enough I'll put it in to a good quality metal caddy that is fan-cooled. Surely that's a better way of doing things than relying on the pieces of shit that pass for "external harddrives" nowadays.

The reason I used the USB stick instead of the IDE drive is because both Hiren's and UBCD did not recognize the harddrive which by the way was connected via a IDE/SATA to USB connecter.

Also, why on some machines does Hiren's boot disk fail to work when a USB device is connected to the machine? It get's stuck on... "mounting boot device" or something along those lines. Bloody frustrating stuff!

heath28m, which file format am I suppose to format this particular USB drive with? I've always used FAT32 over NTFS for USB drives but cannot recall what information made me do things that way :huh:

[DKT27]

Currently I have IDE and SATA internal HDD. SATA is by far the better one. I've also faced a lot of problems in IDE cables.

I don't know of USB HDD but if you wanna know more about NFTS and ways to convert FAT32 to NFTS -

The file system is how Windows stores your files on your hard drive, and it's akin to the way a library arranges books on a shelf. Older versions of Windows used a file system called FAT32 (File Allocation Table, if you must know). Newer versions use one called NTFS (New Technology File System).

NTFS has several benefits. Most importantly, files don't get fragmented as much, so you won't have to defrag as often.

You can't tell which way your drive is set up just by using it. But to get the most out of your machine, you'll want to make sure that you're using NTFS.

Losing FAT

First, check to see if you're already using it. Go to My Computer, then right-click on your hard drive and choose Properties. On the window that appears, you'll see either "File system: FAT32″ or "File system: NTFS."

If it's FAT32, you should convert it. Here's how:

· Shut down any running programs.

· Click Start, then choose Run.

· In the box, enter cmd, which will bring up a black command-line window. You'll see a prompt that says something like "C:\WINDOWS" with a blinking cursor. (If you've ever used DOS, you'll recognize this.)

· Enter the following: convert c: /fs:ntfs (If your hard drive isn't drive C:, substitute the correct letter, and don't forget the space between the colon and the slash.)

· When you press Enter, you'll probably see a message saying the conversion will take place next time you start Windows. So click Start, choose Shut Down, and choose Restart. Windows will convert your drive--and it will also reboot your computer twice.

[HX1]

heath28m, which file format am I suppose to format this particular USB drive with? I've always used FAT32 over NTFS for USB drives but cannot recall what information made me do things that way :huh:

Well I have always formatted mine that way too..( I think it was access speed and size ) BUT like I mentioned above I WONDER.. if it might have something to do with it.. being that the information your copying.. personal files.. maybe even operational files ( NTuser.dat .. ) information that may have specific ownership.. and authorizations.. which should be stored on NTFS format.. which theoretically could become corrupt ( in righting the security data streams since it is not supported on FAT32.. or other simple file attributes usually always stay in tact ) in some way or even denied access to without the proper rights... Its just an idea I thought about.. and it may not even be the formatting of the drive but the reaction by Windows that it is plugged into..

Just a theory.. ( and I haven't looked farther into it )

Oh and BTW I recommend DBAN or Eraser ( based on DBAN to wipe the drive.. can go to 35 passes and beyond and is configurable.. )

[LeetPirate]

NTFS for quick removal drives increases the probability of failure, because ntfs does not always write all the data at once. Should use FAT32 or FAT for smaller drives.