Memory Stick Data recovery ?

[mac_shinobi]

Just had a teacher come to us last friday afternoon and wanted some data retrieved from her memory stick that was about to die at first it kept flashing in my computer and appearing and disappearing every second, had to reboot it to let windows install drivers.

It managed to copy most of it except one file from what I am aware but was just curious if anyone had any extra info regarding the best way of retrieving files / data from a memory stick that is failing or on the virge of failing ?

Thanks

[ChrisH]

You will need some recovery software for that. There are some suggestions in a recent post here

[mac_shinobi]

Found testdisk on that url, looks good :

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Think I will have to download those and slap them on my shuffle

[mac_shinobi]

Just thought, you know with hard drives that are about to die , not sure if its true or not but ive heard you can put it into a sandwhich bag ( zip locked ) and put it into the freezer for some time and then use it again to get the data off of it.

Is that true and also would that work for a memory stick considering they use memory chips and its not magnetic etc.

just a thought

[Grommit]

I look at them all caring like and say.... do you have a backup of this Flash Drive ?

If they say no.. I put the flash drive in and see if it works or not.. if not I say .. sorry you should have backed it up... its dead and chuck it in the bin....

and then get back to the other 50 billion more important jobs I have to do before lunch...

we only give staff 128 or 256mb data sticks to stop them putting too much on them and losing ALL thier work..

Or biggest issue now is staff dumping their full 512mb disks on the servers and not checking before they dump more 512mb sticks onto the server and duplicating the backups...

[mac_shinobi]

thats fair enough and a good point

[beeswax]

Just thought, you know with hard drives that are about to die , not sure if its true or not but ive heard you can put it into a sandwhich bag ( zip locked ) and put it into the freezer for some time and then use it again to get the data off of it.

Is that true and also would that work for a memory stick considering they use memory chips and its not magnetic etc.

just a thought

what freezing/chilling does is to make the disks to contract and create a little more space for movement. it sometimes works, it sometimes doesn't

[Geoff]

Or biggest issue now is staff dumping their full 512mb disks on the servers and not checking before they dump more 512mb sticks onto the server and duplicating the backups...

Quotas?

[john]

I have used the freezer method, and works well, and WDC don't even notice when I return it to them, they are funny when defrosting though, they start dripping water down them, and be careful you can get your hand stuck on them

[kingswood]

I look at them all caring like and say.... do you have a backup of this Flash Drive ?

If they say no.. I put the flash drive in and see if it works or not.. if not I say .. sorry you should have backed it up... its dead and chuck it in the bin....

and then get back to the other 50 billion more important jobs I have to do before lunch...

we only give staff 128 or 256mb data sticks to stop them putting too much on them and losing ALL thier work..

Or biggest issue now is staff dumping their full 512mb disks on the servers and not checking before they dump more 512mb sticks onto the server and duplicating the backups...

My sentiments exactly. BTW- as Geoff said, quotas are good for making sure user areas are limited or that the administrator is warned about people misusing storage on servers. If you use Server 2003 R2, the new File Server Resource Manager snap-in tool has great reporting features that let you run a report on user areas and detail file sizes and total space used...I ran one last week and found a few surprises!

Paul :-)

[ChrisH]

Or biggest issue now is staff dumping their full 512mb disks on the servers and not checking before they dump more 512mb sticks onto the server and duplicating the backups...

A good feature of R2 is the storage reports. You can schedule them to run and email the user the report specificially pointing out the duplicate files. You can change the template of the message as well explain it better to them.

Edit sorry missed the post above me but I went into a bit more detail about automation and getting the users to tidy up after themselves :P

[mac_shinobi]

Just thought, you know with hard drives that are about to die , not sure if its true or not but ive heard you can put it into a sandwhich bag ( zip locked ) and put it into the freezer for some time and then use it again to get the data off of it.

Is that true and also would that work for a memory stick considering they use memory chips and its not magnetic etc.

just a thought

what freezing/chilling does is to make the disks to contract and create a little more space for movement. it sometimes works, it sometimes doesn't

Are there any other tricks or tips like that which would also help ?

Aside from obviously making back ups ( Golden rule # 1 obviously )

[kingswood]

Errmmmm...yeah...make sure you have a ghost image of the HDD and just restore it to its former glory. That way you don't spend two hours on a job just looking for scripts and stuff trying to fix the issue and get on with some real work...hehehehe...

[kingswood]

Of course for memory sticks you could use this:

http://www.brothersoft.com/utilities...ery_46681.html

But it does mean spending money. And I know you are loathe to do that. It *is* only around $40. Peanuts really. And no. The school won't buy it for you ;-)

[plexer]

And no. The school won't buy it for you

Well in thats case it's not a solution then is it?

Ben