Data on USB drive missing after Power Failure? Is stick fried for good?

[chad]

Hi all

We recently had a street-wide power outage as I was working on some stuff for work. My 4GB USB stick was in the port, and now upon re-starting the computer, the files on the USB drive are missing! I get weird things happen when I change ports, such as the H-Drive now has become a H-disk, or where it used to open fine in another USB port as a G-drive, it now detects the drive, but when I try to search or explore the USB, it tells me to insert it again.

Very worryingly, other USB drives work fine in the ports...

Is my USB fried, or damaged from the power outage? The light still works on the stick.

Is there a USB rescue program that can save my files? I do back up, but I haven't backed up for a few days and I desperately need these files (of course)

I look forward to hearing of any programs that can assist re-claiming files from a possibly damaged USB drive.

C

[Broni]

How is USB stick listed in Disk Management?

[patio]

And you can try Recuva...

[chad]

How is USB stick listed in Disk Management?

In Disk Management, under H or G when installed It says "No Media".

I have tried a couple of readily available recovery programs, none seem to find the drive.

Looks bad, huh. I'll look a Recuva now.

[luck of the irish]

are you able to open it up? i.e. the USB Drive

[Broni]

To do what?

[luck of the irish]

if the stick is fried, surely he wouldn't be able to open it up.

[Broni]

No, I'm interested in general what would opening USB stick do...

[Aegis]

are you able to open it up? i.e. the USB Drive

Physically? 

[Broni]

This should do:

[BC_Programmer]

And of course, a heat gun- for diagnostic purposes.

[luck of the irish]

I was first on the literal sense but before I posted, I changed it to the digital sense, however if you want to know what the physical sense would do, well one would not normally be able to open it, however if the person had a multimeter, then the person could locate the broken component and use a soldering iron and solder to repair it.

[chad]

are you able to open it up? i.e. the USB Drive

No screws, nuts or bolts, just an enclosed plastic case with seam, I think I might crack it open anyway, seeing as it's not much good to me if I can't get to my files... I doubt I'll be able to locate a fried circuit and solder it in a drive that measures 10mm x 35mm but, out of interest... see what got fried...


I'd expect a surge to do this, but probably not a power outage.

[quaxo]

I'd expect a surge to do this, but probably not a power outage.

Actually, happens sometimes if the flash drive is in use when the power cuts out.

If no recovery programs, including Patio's suggestion, work at all, then the data is probably lost. If the computer recognizes the drive at all, or at least enough to format it, it might be usable again.

If the computer still isn't seeing it, the drive is probably fried and it would be easier to just buy a new one (cheaper too). It would only be worth repairing the drive if there was some data on there of significant value.

A bit of advice for the future though: Always keep a backup of anything important on a flash drive. They're not reliable enough to keep the only copy of important files or documents. In fact, no computer media is. Even recordable CDs and DVDs can't be relied on 100%.

[Quantos]

I was first on the literal sense but before I posted, I changed it to the digital sense, however if you want to know what the physical sense would do, well one would not normally be able to open it, however if the person had a multimeter, then the person could locate the broken component and use a soldering iron and solder to repair it.

That's not possible, it would fry the semi-conductors, no amount of solder would fix that.