USB stick, "needs to be formatted" data recovery

wacksonjackson

wacksonjackson

wacksonjackson

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Joined
27 May 2013
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6
Hi,

My friend has recently given me her usb stick to fix but I'm completely lost. She was working in Photoshop on a file on her USB stick when it froze and crashed, since that point she hasn't been able to access her USB stick it says it 'needs to be formatted' I've tried a bunch of recovery software to try and repair the drive without having to format it or to recover the data but not a single one can find any files on it they just display a root of RAW.

So i decided to format the drive and then to try and recover the data after that but it says that the capacity of the drive is 64mb (its a 16gb drive) This is through windows but i also tried HP's usb format tool and that also gives a capacity of 64mb

It has a whole term of Uni work on it so any help would be greatly appreciated, ill happily supply more info if you request it

Thanks

Henry
 
Right click My Computer, then Manage. Then go to Storage, Disc Management. Have a look at what's there. You may be lucky and there's a partition on the drive. If not it's a dead USB stick.

Also tell her not to work off a USB stick. Copy to local drive, work off it there, save, copy back.
 
No it simply says no media, BUT i come across different situations with the drive everytime i put it into my computer, some times for about a minute the drive appears normal and working (you cant access any content on it though) after this point it just simply goes blank and you cant do anything with it. Some times it works like i mentioned before where it needs to be formatted!
Surely there has to be some way of getting atleast some data off

And funny you should mention that it was one of the first things i said to her when i couldn't really get far!
 
Should have used testdisk. Might still work, but reformatting decreased the odds.

Realistically the stick is dead, and her work is gone.
 
yeah i tried photorec and testdisk but both dont display the usb in the list. Its in its dead phase though maybe if i can get it back to needs to be formatted i can get something who knows!
 
I admire your dedication to this haha. Getting data back in a serious thing when you really need it but in the end of the day backups should aways be done. I'm learning the hardway after losing a 1TB a month ago.
 
haha ill pass but i cant format that's the point it either doesn't do anything because theres no partition or it just gives me a capacity of 64mb (its a 16gb pen drive) it depends on how its feeling when i plug it in
 
Have a quick look at Active@ File Recovery For Windows, I recently used it very successfully to recover about 24gb of music and photos off a dead external hdd. You get an option to make an image and work off that if the drive will not show in windows.

Good luck.
 
You should never use a USB pen as a 'live storage' solution, it should be for transferring files only.

Copies of files, not the only version!
 
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