bonniesgirl Posted December 27, 2009 Report Share Posted December 27, 2009 I helped a friend reformat her older pc and back up her data to a flash drive. I checked several times to ensure the data was indeed on that flash drive but now when that same drive is inserted it only ask if we would like to format the drive. I have seen others with similar issues. Also, I am wondering, when we copied the files onto the drive her pc was using FAT files system and when I reformatted her pc I switched the file system to NTFS.... could the change be the root of the problem? Any help will be greatly appreciated.Bonniesgirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 Welcome to the Windows Forum.First: no, changing the PC's file system from FAT to NTFS will not have any influence on the flash drive. The flash drive will most likely be FAT32, and Windows should not have any problems accessing that.But it seems that the flash drive got somehow damaged. The first thing I would try is to run CHKDSK against it, to see if the damage is repairable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 I helped a friend reformat her older pc and back up her data to a flash drive. I checked several times to ensure the data was indeed on that flash drive but now when that same drive is inserted it only ask if we would like to format the drive. I have seen others with similar issues. Also, I am wondering, when we copied the files onto the drive her pc was using FAT files system and when I reformatted her pc I switched the file system to NTFS.... could the change be the root of the problem? Any help will be greatly appreciated.BonniesgirlHave you simply pulled the flash dive from the computer at sometime, or do you gain permission to remove it by first right clicking the small icon bottom right hand corner of the screen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 Take a look at this.............Flash Drive Recovery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted December 30, 2009 Report Share Posted December 30, 2009 Take a look at this.............Flash Drive RecoveryI bet it costs a fair bit. Everything that I have on such drives is duplicated on another. They are so inexpensive to buy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonniesgirl Posted December 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2009 Take a look at this.............Flash Drive RecoveryI bet it costs a fair bit. Everything that I have on such drives is duplicated on another. They are so inexpensive to buy.Thanks I did find a program that will recover the files but it costs about $50 so I guess I'll have to purchase that program to rescue my lost files. I thought surely there would be a free option that would work. I still don't quite understand why the files are there but the flash drive appears unformmatted. I have a flash drive that I have been using for quite some time and I never knew about the need to safely remove it and therefore never have and I have never had any problems. Modern technology...gotta love it!Thanks to all of you for your suggestionsBonniesgirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted December 30, 2009 Report Share Posted December 30, 2009 At least you now know to safely disconnect before removing it. Time to get another and duplicate everything. Play.com are very reasonably priced.HERE THEY ARE.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted December 30, 2009 Report Share Posted December 30, 2009 At least you now know to safely disconnect before removing it. Time to get another and duplicate everything. Play.com are very reasonably priced.HERE THEY ARE..I didn't realise Play.com were in the United States..................... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonniesgirl Posted December 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2009 At least you now know to safely disconnect before removing it. Time to get another and duplicate everything. Play.com are very reasonably priced.HERE THEY ARE..I didn't realise Play.com were in the United States.....................Yes, thanks... learn something new everyday...lol. Thanks for the tip! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyeCpc Posted January 2, 2010 Report Share Posted January 2, 2010 I helped a friend reformat her older pc and back up her data to a flash drive. I checked several times to ensure the data was indeed on that flash drive but now when that same drive is inserted it only ask if we would like to format the drive. I have seen others with similar issues. Also, I am wondering, when we copied the files onto the drive her pc was using FAT files system and when I reformatted her pc I switched the file system to NTFS.... could the change be the root of the problem? Any help will be greatly appreciated.BonniesgirlI have another question I could ask here. When reformatting your friend's pc which version of Windows was installed onto it? XP, Vista, 7?The version will easily make the difference since while XP can be installed on Fat it natively won't read from Fat on usb devices. Vista certainly won't there either. Windows 7 now sees native support for Fat as well as the newer exFat there.The solution isn't buying any software or new flash drive but to plug the present one into a new machine long enought to copy the files off of it long enough to reformat the flash drive itself to NTFS. You then can copy those back onto it and it will ve available on the original machine once initialized and assigned a new logical drive letter.Have a live Linux cd lying around you can boot from by chance? With the flash drive plugged in and booting from a ubuntu or Puppy live cd you can access the present Fat volume there and rescue files too. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ubuntu 6.04 or newer, Puppy Linux 4.2.1, Knoppix live are usable for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.