Flash drive is not seen

[Novel8]

I have a 16 gb flash drive that had many files. Somehow, something happened to it when I was  reinstalling win 7 in a dual setup. For some reason i have left it plugged in during that process...i did notice a fast moving message that mentioned something about my FD, but could not read it in time...the message passed by as quick as a wink. later i noticed that when I did replug it, i couldn't get a read on it, no matter what i do. The only way i can see it is through disk management, and its shown there as a removable disk, and as a complete blank. With the mouse I cannot do any functions..partitioning, formatting and etc.  so i do not know if its possible. Without windows explorer acknowledging it, I cannot even see if i could copy or send a file to it. For all i know, all of my previous folders and files may still be on it...but at this stage i don't care about them anymore..i just want to 'save
 that drive.  Is there any hope?

[patio]

So in disk management you cannot rite clik it and format ? ?

[DaveLembke]

Have you tried this thumb drive on another computer to see if you get better results. I had a picky 4GB Transcend thumb drive once that wouldnt mount on a new build but was able to mount on an older build. All other drives worked with no problems. Even tried using a port in back of PC instead of in the front, which i am guessing you have tried using a port in back of computer if a desktop computer to eliminate the port as the problem.


However unable to even wipe it clean and format it indicates that it might be toast. They can just die unpredictably. Since around 2005 I have had 5 of them fail out of the about 40 that i have owned. One of them I was able to read data from but unable to write to, others mounted and showed improper capacity, or didnt mount at all.

[Novel8]

So in disk management you cannot rite clik it and format ? ?

That's what I said in my OP.

[Geek-9pm]

Here is an article from EASEUS, a maker of drive management software.
How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files from USB Flash Drive Without Software

Permanently deleted files on USB flash drives, pen drives, memory cards and HDD/SSD, for example, using shift delete, can be effectively retrieved using third-party data recovery software. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard as a free piece of file recovery software allows people to recover permanently deleted files and folders on any type of storage devices only in two steps.

Of course, they would like to sell your something.
EASEUS does offer free trail of most of its products.