Data Recovery #2

Blind

United States2528 Posts

September 29 2009 06:58 GMT

From previous blog:

What's the best way to recover data from a flash drive? I googled this, but I don't know how effective it is.

The flash drive was already kind of broken when I was using it. When plugged in, it would periodically disconnect from the computer. Then one time, a pop-up said I needed to format the flash drive in order to use it. I brought it to someone who formatted it and then used some recovery program to retrieve the files. He got about 80% of the files back, but only about 25% of them can be opened. The rest give an error message.

Anything else I can do?

I thought I'd try to blog again since I'm getting extremely desperate. I have 5 personal statements that I can't open. This is what happens when I try to open one of the corrupted .doc files:

If I click yes, it tries to install the converter, but it can't since I don't have windows cd at the moment (at school). It eventually leads me here (same as if I had clicked no):

First, is there any way I can make that data viewable?

Second, I also have a lot of TMP files on the flash drive, e.g. _WRD0610.TMP. Is it possible to open them? Big thanks to anyone who can help me get these personal statements back.

Edit:
By using this feature:

I was able to recover fragments of 2 of the personal statements. In these recovered files, the formatting is messed up and there are weird characters, but there's also a decent amount of what I wrote in there.

Scorch

Austria3371 Posts

September 29 2009 07:46 GMT

I don't think you can get back anything more that what you already got. Data Recovery isn't a 100% thing. No Word converter in the world can help you with obviously corrupted files. Maybe try and open the files with Wordpad or Notepad and see if you can retrieve some fragments there. But don't expect to ever get the complete files back.

To be honest, serves you right for storing important data exclusively on a flash drive without a backup, especially if you already knew the drive had issues. I hope you learned your lesson.

Agavond

448 Posts

September 29 2009 07:56 GMT

This site isn't really intended for computer technicians to guide you through computer assistance. I suggest you go to geekstogo.com and register an account. They will most likely help you, if they can recover your important files. I usually go there for advice or assistance since they have tons of volunteers that are knowledgeable.

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/forums.html

Vex

Ireland454 Posts

September 29 2009 08:47 GMT

5/5 this may save lives some day.

Blind

United States2528 Posts

September 29 2009 16:35 GMT

On September 29 2009 16:46 Scorch wrote:
I don't think you can get back anything more that what you already got. Data Recovery isn't a 100% thing. No Word converter in the world can help you with obviously corrupted files. Maybe try and open the files with Wordpad or Notepad and see if you can retrieve some fragments there. But don't expect to ever get the complete files back.

To be honest, serves you right for storing important data exclusively on a flash drive without a backup, especially if you already knew the drive had issues. I hope you learned your lesson.

I'm doing this for a friend. I've been speaking for him. I know better.

Blind

United States2528 Posts

September 29 2009 16:36 GMT

Anyone know about the TMP files though? Aren't these the backup files from the word documents? They might not be corrupted so I just need to know if I can open them.

Please or register to reply.

Data Recovery #2

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming