SanDisk Cruzer

[garibaldired]

I have a 4gb SanDisk cruzer flash drive on which I keep a back up GEDCOM of my family history
and all copies of photos & censuses (some of which I only have here).
Two days ago it was fine, now I get one of two messages when I try to access it,
either: This folder is empty
or: You need to format the disk in drive G before you can use it. Do you want to format it?
I have tried it in other USB ports and other computers; the message is the same.
Googling, this seems to be a rare (no consolation!) problem which offers little or no hope of retrieval of the information.
Does anyone have any possible solutions or should I start crying now?
I should add I have always treated it carefully!

Best wishes,
Meg

[Moray_Lass]

Hi Meg

Not so rare - I've seen it a few times before with various makes, which is why I never trust a USB stick as my only backup. It is possible that another computer might still read it, I've seen that happen. I've never tried it, but DOS might still read it. Otherwise I haven't heard of anything, unless someone else has

[garibaldired]

I never trust a USB stick as my only backup

Fortunately, Maggie, it's not the only back up for most of my stuff but it was the only place where it was altogether and easily accessible..........
You live and learn!
Meg

[Isabel H]

I'm not sure if it will work in this situation, but it might be worth trying a data recovery program like Recuva, which you can download free.

[garibaldired]

it might be worth trying a data recovery program like Recuva

Thanks very much for the tip.
I've just tried it but unfortunately it hasn't worked

Best wishes,
Meg

[Currie]

Hello Meg,

The only USB thumb drives that have failed me did so soon after purchase and were sent back. It seems to happen more with the cheap and nasty variety although SanDisk isn’t one of those.

If you just want to get the thing working again without recovering any data you could try the format. This may work, but perhaps only for a while.

If you’re trying to recover data from it you could try something like Unstoppable Copier although I’ve no idea if that will work any better than the program already mentioned. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/uncopier.html

Or perhaps try running chkdsk.exe and see if it can repair any problems. There’s a Graphical User Interface for it here that should make things a bit easier. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/checkdiskgui.html

I haven’t tried any of the above myself. Whatever you do make sure you’re doing it to the right drive and not to something else.

Best of luck,
Alan

[garibaldired]

Hello Alan,

Thanks for those suggestions.
I have tried both of those programmes; in fact I seem to have spent the entire morning trying to access this lost data! Sadly I have had no luck.
I'm rapidly losing the will to live........

Many thanks again for all your help.

Best wishes,
Meg