USB Flash Drive – How to Recover Data from a Dead Drive

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So a friend has come to me with a problem. They have a dead USB thumb drive which no longer responds when plugged into a machine.

I've tried it in a Mac and it doesn't even respond, at least on a Windows XP machine it sees that it is there but can't show it in explorer, just that whatever is plugged in has malfunctioned. There is obviously current because the activity light on the drive illuminates.

I'm looking for suggestions, please. I have access to Mac or Windows hardware and am happy to experiment (and even to pay if the solution works!)

It's a bit late to recommend regular backups, but in the lack of that, what's the next best forensic advice?

Edit: I should stress that, if possible, we're trying to rescue the data, after all, thumb drives are basically disposable and hardly worth the bother if there's no emotional or functional reason for wanting to rescue it!

Best Answer

Does it appear in Device Manager? Click Start, Run and type devmgmt.msc.

If it does, there are a couple of tools I would recommend. Firstly, PhotoRec which is free.

PhotoRec ignores the file system and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's file system has been severely damaged or reformatted.

Alternatively, I purchased and had great success with a tool called R-Studio. It comes at a premium, but hey you get what you pay for.

Additional file recovery algorithm. R-Studio not only analyzes file systems metadata ( all file types are supported ) but additionally searches for files of known types ( see list of known file types ) using typical features of their structures that allows the user: - to increase the quality of file recovery when the file system is not damaged; - to recover files that are not recognized in file system metadata and not found during a disk scanning procedure; - to recover files from devices with unknown file systems, including HD, CD, DVD, floppy disk, Compact-Flash Card, USB drive, ZIP drive, Memory Sticks and other removable media.

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