WRM / GRDavies... anyone... HELP!

[My Name is URL]

Hi guys,

I have a USB memory stick and I can't get it working on my Windows Vista machine.

Normally I plug it in an a window pops up and I can choose various options, like open folder to view files etc...

Well it doesn't do that any more and it also doesn't show up in my computer. Very strange. Tried some different USB ports on same PC = same result.

Right clicked Computer and then then chose Manage and then Disk Management

I see a "Disk 1" listed as "Unknown" and "Not Initialized". I right click it and then Initialize Disk then Ok and get a message "The device is not ready"

I right click "Disk 1" and go to Properties and see under General, Device Status "The device is working properly"

Any ideas anyone, please fire away.

 

[zakkwylde87]

The only thing i might suggest is going on the net and looking to see if your USB memory stick has any drivers for it that might make it pick it up in the devices...

 

[Wookie]

What happens on a completely different PC, have you tried that? Windows can do some funny things with USB drive letter assignments.

 

[My Name is URL]

Tried a completely different (albeit the same spec) PC and same problems...

REALLY hope I can rescue my files from here....

 

[db]

Hi guys,

I have a USB memory stick and I can't get it working on my Windows Vista machine.

Normally I plug it in an a window pops up and I can choose various options, like open folder to view files etc...

Well it doesn't do that any more and it also doesn't show up in my computer. Very strange. Tried some different USB ports on same PC = same result.

Right clicked Computer and then then chose Manage and then Disk Management

I see a "Disk 1" listed as "Unknown" and "Not Initialized". I right click it and then Initialize Disk then Ok and get a message "The device is not ready"

I right click "Disk 1" and go to Properties and see under General, Device Status "The device is working properly"

Any ideas anyone, please fire away.

the option to initialise a disk should only appear if it is a new drive in a raw, unformatted state.. similar to how you used to have to fdisk a volume in DOS before formatting it.. i would have thought that, even if the data was recoverable, initialising it would pretty much eradicate any hope of that :/

although the fact that it then reported that the disc was not ready might suggest that windows didn't even get as far as initialising it, so you might be ok..

presumably there's no option to assign it a drive letter in the disk management console then?

 

[My Name is URL]

Nope, not an option

 

[gdavies]

should very odd but sometimes some flash drives can fail if need me to back it up for you i can do and reinstate the flash drive for no charge too

 

[My Name is URL]

Very kind offer gdavies and I may well take you up on that, but how will you back it up if you can get it to work on a PC?

 

[gdavies]

i have a macbook and many many version of linux that i can use i went through a phase of data recovery and i can only say pop round and i will show you lol

 

[gdavies]

pm sent to you gk141054

 

[gdavies]

sorry dude seems that drive has seen better light

 

[My Name is URL]

Massive thanks buddy, I think it was a case of if you couldn't fix it, no one could....

Your help was much appreciated though

 

[gdavies]

well the tools i tried only found the name of the drive but then couldn't view it tells me it went to the cloudy sky above lol you mustn't live to far away then dude either

 

[shoes]

Bad luck gk

Must admit I was racking my brains and the only thing I could think of was to bang it into the macbook (for no educated reason other than a different OS might see it differently).

 

[My Name is URL]

Thanks shoes... luckily I backed it up a month ago (luck more than judgement) so only lost a month of stuff which isn't too time consuming to catch up on.

gdavies did try it on his mac and tried about everything else possible...

 

[wmrcomputers]

Sorry was not around to give advice. 2 day old motherboard failed on me and only just got my replacement

 

[gdavies]

I tried on it dos command prompt under win xp, also in mac osx 10.6, then in knoppix, backtrax, partiton magic, arconis data recovery pro also tried cleaning the contacts the closest i got was recovered the name of the drive then nothing. Sad times when you try so much but nothing powers it, The win xp machine i tried it in has drivers galore on it and all sorts of patches aimed at data recovery too.