Recover files from USB drive. Sounds simple enough, but sometimes these little USB thumb drives can be pretty difficult to recover the data from. This particular USB drive recovery went very smoothly and has a happy ending! We offer affordable USB drive recovery, with special pricing for these little thumb drives!
Recover Files From USB Drive
USB drives like this Cruzer Glide model are very convenient to store data on temporarily for easy access. Having a backup is always important, especially when you are storing the data on these little USB guys. The standard ExFat or Fat32 format they usually come reformatted in is notorious for getting corrupted due to being unplugged without being properly ejected or similar. But they are extremely convenient!
They are so convenient that sometimes you can even forget they are plugged into your laptop when putting it away until you need to access the data and realize the USB connector has broken off completely in the bottom of your backpack. Reaching for your thumb drive and finding two pieces is pretty disheartening.
Or, these little USB drives can be accidentally left in your pocket, and take a ride on splash mountain with your clothes. I have had a few of my personal USB drives take this ride! It is super easy to lose track of the little guys, and that can be the cause of a lot of recovery attempts.
16GB Cruzer Glide Recovery
This particular Cruzer Glide recovery came into me in two pieces. It had been left in a laptop and when the laptop was moved it bumped against something and broke the connector off the drive.
When looking at these USB thumb drives for recovery, the hope is that the data chip is intact and not cracked. When the data chip itself cracks, recovery is usually not possible. In this case, the 16GB Sandisk data chip was intact and the connector was the only physical issue!
Soldering the connector back on
After soldering the connector in place with some fresh solder, I always continue with the same process as any other drive: imaging first, then recovery software, then moving to a new drive. Skipping any of these steps can cause problems if there was another issue with the USB drive instead of just the connector being broken off. You don’t know for sure everything that will go wrong with a drive until you are done recovering the data.
I always start by imaging with a simple pass. I set the imager to skip over any slow areas so I get back as much data as possible without stressing out the drive at all. The imaging process was completed without issue in this case, so the physical problems that were remedied with the soldering were the likely only issues.
Recovering the files from USB drive
In this case, I didn’t notice any partition corruption or other software issue during the recovery software process; it was just the physical problem of the USB connector having been broken off. This makes a lot of sense as the drive would have stopped working in an instant when the connector was broken. If a drive is failing for a while before it stops working, corruption is more likely.
Did I recover files from USB drive? Yep! 100% of the data was recovered with all file names and folder structure intact.
Quick and affordable data recovery services
This particular recovery took about a day to complete and get back to the client. It fell under our Standard Recovery Tier and the client was happy with the results! It is a good feeling to get 100% of the data someone needs.
If you would like me to work on your recovery project, please feel free to contact us or fill out our contact form below. Thanks for reading!
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