USB device not recognized

[Jobos]

A teacher has given me her usb pen drive saying it’s faulty and despite me trying it on 3 different computers they all say usb device not recognized. Normally I would just tell the teacher to buy a new pen but this one has all of her reports on it and no backup so I am looking for any tools which might help?

[Jamo]

Download photorec and try to find documents in the probably dead partition

[apeo]

Download photorec and try to find documents in the probably dead partition

 

Would the software work? given that it comes up as an unknown device, not an unformated removable disk.

 

@Jobos: I havent heard of any easy way to get it to work but if someone does that would be cool. Have you tried on a nix based machine?

[witch]

I have had some good results by gently bending the usb stick whilst in the computer. I managed to get all the info off one like that - you have to be quick though!

[Jamo]

Mmmm, not sure. Might be worth a try though. Its only bout 1meg download

[Jobos]

I've tried the stick in XP and Vista machine, tried Photorec and bending the stick but still no joy. Looks like the teacher will have a busy weekend!

[AngryTechnician]

If you can get the case of the USB pen open, see if there is any physical damage. Cracked solder joints, burned resistors, anything like that. If you find something, you could have a go at soldering or bridging the resistor (or get a more electronics-minded colleague to have a go if, like me, you're not very good with soldering).

[witch]

Squeezing it together hard while it is connected sometimes works as well

[plexer]

Wierd because I got given an OCZ ATC 8GB one which had the same issue reported on it.

 

Using my windows 7 laptop the device installed fine and I was able to pull the info off it however just after I had done that I got the unrecognized device error.

 

I've also logged and RMA with OCZ for it.

 

Ben