Help! With a Windows/Flash Drive issue

[RedRock]

Help!

I have a 16 Gb flash drive with about 13.5 Gb of data on it (yes, backed up, but in several places in small bits here and there, not as a cohesive whole), that Windows no longer lets me read. When I insert the drive (USB), AutoPlay runs and I can see all the different files and folders being checked, so I know they're there, at least the file directories, but the drive just shows up as blank on Windows Explorer. It shows 0 Gb space used and 0 Gb space available. Trying to Explore the drive (right click from the desktop after opening My Computer) just makes a nested window showing the desktop directory. I use this primarily as a backup of my C drive files and for taking my work back and forth from work to home (Windows at work, Mac at home; pdf, word, excel, jpg files).

The drive no longer will even register on my Mac, in addition, so I can't do anything with it from that standpoint.

I'd like to be able to read this drive, so I can copy all the data over to a single source, another jump drive or my C drive hard disk, so that I can then hard archive the data onto CD or DVD.

What can I do?

Thanks.

[Lamron]

Hopefully, you just have a corupted file directory and all the info is actually intact. This can happen if the drive was pulled while it was being written to.
Try this:

Go to "My Computer" and right-click on the flash drive.
Go to the "Tools" tab and pick the "Check drive for errors" option.
Check both "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"

That should rebuild the directories, or if it can't fix the problem the error messages will give you clues for what to try next.

[Major_A]

just asking for the future in case this happens to me, again,
but will chkdsk /r work on a usb drive?

I had one crash awhile back and forgot to try it.

[Lamron]

The sugestion I made has exactly the same effect as running "chkdsk /r /f" on the usb drive. Its just an easier way to describe it to someone.

[RedRock]

Lamron, when I could get it to show up on the desktop, just without the files, I had already tried that checking, and nothing changed. Today I can't even get it to show up on the desktop. I keep getting the error message that an unknown device has been connected, and viewing properties on that shows it to have no driver, but with troubleshooting attempts, I can't download, roll back, or update a driver for it. Windows says to try reconnecting it, and if that fails, to replace the device. So I'm thinking I'm just screwed on it.

[Major_A]

How old is that pen drive & how often does it get used?

@ Lamron Oh, I didn't realize that was the same command. When it's a hard disk windows make you reboot to use it...on xp anyway.

[Lamron]

If you're getting "unknown device" errors, then there's something physically wrong with it and there aren't going to be any software solutions. A professional data recovery company might be able to read the data directly off the chips, but that's going to be big $$$. Sorry, Red, I think its a lost cause. I hope you can find all your backups.

[RedRock]

Well, you know the definition of "insanity" of trying the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different outcome? I'm insane.

I've been sticking my flash drive back in my pc and my Mac daily now since 12/20/10 with no change, but suddenly for no reason it registered on my Mac's desktop last night! So I quickly booted up my external 500 Gb hard drive and copied the whole frigging 13'ish Gb files from the flash drive onto the external HD! I'll try later to see if it now shows up on my PC desktop too, but I'm thinking the thing has a bad circuit or something and isn't reliable any longer, so I'm just going to put it away. If I thought it was reliable, I'd wipe it and start using it fresh, wondering if the sheer volume of files on it was the problem. Anyway, thanks for the help!