memory stick urgent help needed

[Willow]

I have done my budgets and salary caluclations for next year on a memory stick. Usually I then save them to the computer at work but often there is confusion between which version is on which system. So this year I decided to do it all on the memory stick and then when it is all agreed save final version onto the computer. Last night I was using the memory stick for a report and all was working well. Took stick into work this afternoon and computer can't see it, have now bought it home and same thing. Am I doom or is there anyway I can get this information back. I do have hard copies but will need to rekey all the data for monthly monitoring purposes.
Bloody stupid not to have backed up but it was working much better for me until this. damn damn damn.:?:

 

[MacB]

clean the connecting bit of the memory stick and wiggle it about in the port a bit, works for mine

 

[Willow]

clean the connecting bit of the memory stick and wiggle it about in the port a bit, works for mine

no joy with that

 

[Carwash]

Did you unmount (eject) the stick cleanly before you removed it?

 

[TWBNK]

You may be able to force mount it from a linux box. Not too sure about doing the same on windows.

 

[ACS]

This may work

Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Computer Management

Click on disk management and it should bring up a list of disks. Right click on your USB disk and select Change drive letter and paths.

 

[derall]

Assuming this is Windows

Right click on 'My Computer' and click on 'Manage'
Highlight 'Device Manager' in the left hand pane and expand 'Disk Management'. If it's listed there, it should be healthy and recoverable. You may just need to rename the drive to make it visible again. If it isn't there, it may still be recoverable but you may be looking at handing it over to tech support .

See the Norwegian Blue Disk, a salutary tale about such events...

 

[derall]

Damn and blast, Satan's Budgie beat me to it.

 

[ACS]

Damn and blast, Satan's Budgie beat me to it.

 

[yoyo]

I have had problems with memory sticks on the school network. The technician told me to right click on the device in My Computer and select explore. Perhaps that will work.

 

[Willow]

nothing doing problem is computer can't actually tell the memory stick is in the usb port. i have tried other ports and 3 different computers. some of the spreadsheets I need I had attached to emails so have got those back but the rotten old salary budgets which take ages to do but are only about 5 spreadsheets I would like back instead of having to start from scratch. Have found a place on line that reckons it can do it but it will cost me £100 plus I'm a bit worried about security issues. Looks like I know what'll be doing this weekend. Thanks for helping any other ideas appreciated or if you know someone that can get my data back for £50 I may be prepared to have a go.

 

[very-near]

I've had a few go tits up on me in the same way. I've just written them off TBH

 

[ColinJ]

I think this is a warning for people who use USB drives for backup purposes. If you are going to do that, it might be an idea to buy one for each day of the week and that way if one goes wrong, at least you should have another recent backup. They are really cheap these days.

I've started emailing myself backups, so there is always a copy stored online. If you do that and are worried about security, you could encrypt the files.

 

[MacB]

yep, I keep a lot on a usb stick, but this is copied, generally daily, to home pc, work pc and online store. Never going to lose much data I hope.

 

[ACS]

This may take a moment to set up.

Download a copy of Knoppix Live CD

Create a folder on the C drive of your laptop called recovery.

Close down the PC

Place pen drive into a working USB slot

Boot your laptop using the live CD with the Pen drive in place . This may take a couple of minutes as the data on the CD is loaded into the RAM to give a virtual linux desktop.

Once loaded, if the USB drive is servicable you should be able see the data. You may be able to then migrate the data from the USB drive to the recovery folder.

I have used this method in the past with a 80% sucess rate.

Best of luck