Unusual Flash Drive Issue

[unit 900]

I plugged in good USB flash drive and it displayed properly in Windows Explorer in Win 7. I tried to open a folder I made over the weekend that had 3 Kindle book files from my brother. I got a message that it was an unrecognized format. At that point, the message became 'the disk needs to be formatted'. Then, another dialog box saying 'the volume does not contain a recognized file system'. I tried it on another Win 7 laptop and an XP prof. with the same results. The drive is shown in 'My Computer'. I have lots of stuff on the drive and am looking for some advice on how to save it. Thanks.

[DAIadvisor]

FD might have crapped out on you. Try it couple more times, if error persists, you're sol.

[unit 900]

FD might have crapped out on you. Try it couple more times, if error persists, you're sol.

Just for giggles then, I'm downloading Linux Mint and will try that in a live session to see if I have any luck. At the least, I'll learn a little something.

[sappy13]

it may just be a bad flashdrive. I have a 16 gig sandisk one that i got for cheap at bestbuy a while back. Within the first month or two it started doing that. sometimes it would be recognized and sometimes it wouldnt, with no consistency. i have tried formatting it, but nothing worked as a permanent solution. needless to say i dont keep anything important on it.

[unit 900]

The drive was invisible to Linux, so I guess it's trashed beyond repair.

[DAIadvisor]

You might want to low level format it (after you give up trying to get anything off of it), to see if it's salvageable. :)

[X-ray 4N6]

What happens if you try to error check it?
(Right click device in My Computer, select Properties, then Tools, then Error Checking (and have both options ticked)

[unit 900]

What happens if you try to error check it?
(Right click device in My Computer, select Properties, then Tools, then Error Checking (and have both options ticked)

Thanks for the tip. I tried that and got the message that the check could not be performed because the disk is not formatted.
I think it's time to stick a fork in it, it's done. Thanks all.

[dwhite53]

I had one that gave me a similar problem. Seems I just pulled it out without doing the "safely remove hardware" thing after putting the laptop in sleep mode. All I had to do was put it back in, open it, the remove it using the "safely remove hardware" process.

Had a similar problem with an SD card that fixed the same way.

I get in a hurry and just pull them sometimes. 99% of the time this is fine. Then there are those other times.

All the Best,
D. White

[unit 900]

Well dress me in pantyhose and call me Aunt Irene. I did a quick format and ran RECUVA, a free recovery tool from Piriform. It salvaged virtually all of my files after a NTFS format. They lost their names and are just numbered (all 1027 files) but they are now on my hard drive. Persistence pays, with help from GT. :cool:

[mr.scott]

Get your data off of the drive and trash it.

[unit 900]

Get your data off of the drive and trash it.

Amen!

[prism]

and backup the files.