Darrell O'Neill Posted October 2, 2012 Posted October 2, 2012 Panic on.... Just saved a back-up of an accountancy program along with previous back-ups on a memory stick. Viewed them and checked to make sure they were there (they were)..... now 10 mins later when ive put the stick in the USB drive it says it cannot be read and needs to format it and that will lose all previous data... What do I do now? beginning to panic a little... :-( Quote
Hornet600 Posted October 2, 2012 Posted October 2, 2012 When you saved the file to the stick, when you removed the stick did you disconnect it properly from the bottom right task bar? If you didn't and simply pulled it out, then you could be in big probs as it will be corrupt. Quote
Meakin Posted October 2, 2012 Posted October 2, 2012 Don't panic, there are two possibilities first corrupted file on memory stick second broken stick. First solution try this program: http://www.piriform.com/recuva very goo dat recovering data from corrupt sticks. However I suspect its more likely that the stick is broken. 2nd solution: Most memory sticks break at the joint just inside the case. Take stick out see if there is play in metal part of the stick at all. If so then put memory stick in and gently pull the stick up in the socket. See if it connects. If it does then quickly copy all the files off. If no joy then gently remove the cover and see if the 4 wires parts are connected up. It may be a tiny break if you are able to hold it so that all 4 are touching it will reconnect. plug it in again without the cover and hold the stick so the 4 wires are touching and you should get a connection. You can also resolder these to put back together. I've done this lots of times (6th formers losing projects etc.) and this does work. Hope that helps Paul Quote
FILFAN Posted October 2, 2012 Posted October 2, 2012 try a different machine once inserted can you not view the device in my computer? not what you want to hear but i had a similar problem with a sd card. it refused to see it and said it needed formatting. in the end i did format it but it turned out that the card was cracked and ended up in the bin Quote
Meakin Posted October 2, 2012 Posted October 2, 2012 Just a follow up if you are struggling and really desperate PM me and you can mail it to me and I will see what I can do. Unfortunately depending on stick I am able to recover about 1/2 the dead sticks I have encountered. Paul Quote
Blatman Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 And... I'd like to see the answer to this. Could prove most useful... Quote
Darrell O'Neill Posted October 8, 2012 Author Posted October 8, 2012 Sorry, .... I was desperate to try and recover the info before i went away for a few days.... In short i was completely unable to recover any of the info in anyway. The stick is still asking to be formatted but neither me or a freind with alot more IT knowledge than me was able to recover it. To be honest I dont have any faith in the stick now so it'll be going in the bin and in future i shall back up everything twice... luckily I was able to recover some info i needed on Sage, from an automatic back up i didnt know i had! .... Not much use im afraid Blatters, but just when i learnt to back-up stuff on a stick im know having to learn to back-up the back-ups... :-( hopefully HMRC will go a little easy on me for being late filing my VAT! Quote
peterg Posted October 9, 2012 Posted October 9, 2012 1st rule of IT - take a backup 2nd rule of IT - test the backup for readability 3rd rule of IT - take another backup 4th rule of IT - test that backup for readability For a large company do this at least daily, for a small company at least weekly... Part of my job as Computer Operations Manager for an international book publishers was to test disaster recovery to ensure we could be up and running again within 24 hours if the building we were based in was destroyed. I'm glad to say we never had to recover the systems for real but we did do an annual test at a DR company site to verify that the plan would work, and fortunately for me (and my job) it always did... in one test we were able to get all systems and comms up in 11 hours from 'cold'. One time while I was there the techie guys told me of another company who came to test for the first time and found their backup tapes were unreadable... they went back through all their previous backups (over a three year's worth) and could not read any of them but until then had never checked that what they had 'backed up' could actually be restored Quote
Norman Verona Posted October 9, 2012 Posted October 9, 2012 I wrote a system that read back the tape in the drive at 07:00. It took the date and compared it to todays. If older than today it would not let the accounts staff to access the accounting suite until the tape had been changed for that days. The idea was that all could go home at night without having to remember to put that nights tape in the drive. Motor dealers - they still complained. Quote
Blatman Posted October 9, 2012 Posted October 9, 2012 I'm going to start using "Cloud" solutions like Dropbox (or Google Drive if you must) for this sot of thing. One back up on my local network drive, one to Dropbox. O/S system backups will be double saved at home just in case, and because I haven't looked at how I might recover a dead PC from an on-line back-up. But you can always drop an ISO image to the back-up, download it with a working PC then burn a disc to boot the dead PC from... I just found www.idrive.com. 5Gb for free and there are apps for iPhone and Android plus a whole bunch of other stuff that looks worth more than a 2 minute skim of their site... Quote
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