help

cookie66

my daughter inserted her memory stick into her laptop whrn she got in from school and it said it needed formating. which she did and now there seems to be nothing on her stick. has she lost all her course work? please help.

jaydeeuk1

Oh dear.... Formatting wipes data. On a normal hard drive, this is easily reversible. A memory stick, I'm not so sure about but can't see why not.

Try this software out...

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/

I'll talk you through if you like. I've used it before when the IT 'experts' at my wifes school !!!!!!ed things up. Does work well.
Whatever you do, don't write anything to the memory stick.

cookie66

thank you i was sitting here hoping there was someone who could give some quick advice. I will grab it off her and give it a whirl and then get back to you.
ooops. she has already tried to resave onto stick.

cookie66

thankyou jaydee. ive had a look at the site but i think i will get oh to have a look, its tooooo tech for me. will wait patiently till then. if not will let you know if more help is needed.

jaydeeuk1

It really is dead simple to use.

1)First, download the program. Then install to your hard drive.

http://www.officerecovery.com/download/freeundelete.exe

2) Run the program and you will see a screen like one in the screen shot via the link in my first post.

On the left hand side it will list hard drives, DVD drives and any plugged in memory sticks. Your memory stick will probably be listed as either E or F.

Click on E or F and press 'Scan' just above. This will take a few seconds while it shows all files that are either currently active. or set as deleted. At this point, your daughter might be able to recognise file names and directories of her work.

3) Where it says 'browse' at the bottom, this will let you choose a directory on your hard drive where you wish to save the recovered files to. Something like c:\memorystick\ will do.

Press 'Undelete'.

4) Close the program and go to windows explorer or my computer and look for c:\memorystick. Hopefully all her work will be there!

cookie66

hi jaydee just installed and ran programme. they memory stick wasnt listed. helpppppp

OneADay

From past experience - I do not think (might be wrong) that FreeUndelete works on non hard disks.

jaydeeuk1

OneADay wrote: »

From past experience - I do not think (might be wrong) that FreeUndelete works on non hard disks.

Ah right, didn't realise that.

However, there might be a (complicated!) workaround. I set my SD card up using a special hitachi driver to 'fool' windows in to thinking its a fixed drive. However it isn't straightforward for non techies...

Looking on google brings this up as a recommendation.

http://www.recuva.com/

I've never heard, let alone used it before, but I'll install it on my laptop, see how it works and put up some instructions for you.

jaydeeuk1

Ok. I've just installed, and will type up what I'm doing as I go along. I'll pretend I'm recovering deleted files from my SD card.

Download and install program.

Run recuva. The first screen will ask what sort of files you want to recover. I'd choose 'all'.

The next screen asks for the location. Choose 'on my media card'. If non are detected (and it is plugged in!) choose 'In a specific location'

The next screen will ask if you wish to do a deep scan. Leave this unticked for now. The next screen will bring a results screen, with (hopefully!) a load of files listed. However, if non are found it will ask if you wish to do a deep recovery. Choose yes. This may take a few minutes.


When / if files are found, they will be listed in the window. There will be a blank tickbox that allows you to select all files. Tick this and press 'recover'.

You will be asked where you wish to back these files up to. Make sure you select 'C' and a directory in there, eg c:\recover and not to your memory stick!

cookie66

will try in the morning. thanks for everyones help. will keep you up to date.

macman

I think I already know the answer to this question, but did she not keep a backup of the flash drive course work on her laptop?
A flash drive is not intended for permanent storage of files, it's easily breakable, unstable and of course very losable.
I hope you can recover something, but I rather doubt it.
In future make sure she backs it up to the laptop every time--it takes just seconds.