StewartGilligan
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corrupt usb drive?
copied data off my iPhone onto usb thumb drive. folder on thumbdrive is in some Unicode foreign character name and cant be accessed. it says it has 8 gig of data on it but when you try to open it it shows files in the same garbled look. cant rename either. help.will not open
ASKER
plugged it in another pc and the same garbled names. there are some folders with normal names that do have the data still intact and usable
Than maybe it's only that last copy job causing only file system errors, and hardware is intact. Then copy the files you need to somewhere else, format, copy data back.
Try using a trial data recovery application. There are lots of them on the net that give you a 2 week or 30 day eval period to test. Typically you can recover some of the data but to get it all they make you pay. However this will help eliminate what the root problem is.
ASKER
tried data recovery but the data was not found as it was not deleted. even if I try to delete folder it does not allow it to be deleted :-(
That tells me that there is a problem with hardware or manufactures firmware. Or it is some sort of protection mechanism installed by the vendor of the USB drive. Have you checked with the usb drive manufacturer?
ASKER
sent email. no reply yet :-(
It doesn't allow to be deleted, because as I said, it's a file system error, which you can only fix with a format.
That's why I already told you to copy away the data you need (from the older folders with correct names), format the drive and copy the data back.
That's why I already told you to copy away the data you need (from the older folders with correct names), format the drive and copy the data back.
ASKER
cant copy. wont allow. says file name too long or invalid. cant rename file either. these were folders that show they still have the data in them by the size but they were renamed these symbols and given an extension. non of it is changeable or can be copied :-(
I already told you this. I clearly said, copy away the files with normal names. You can only fix your usb drive after formatting it.
ASKER
thank you for your clear reply. I did copy off the files with normal names, earlier in this thread. it is the 4 folders I posted (with the garbled names) that I need the data from. wont they go away if I format the disk???
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ASKER
thank you for the info. I don't care much about the usb drive, its the data I wanted :-(
ASKER
is there really no way to recover this data??? wow that's hard to believe :-(
ps drive was never ejected without using the safe hardware removal icon in windows
ps drive was never ejected without using the safe hardware removal icon in windows
Data was corrupted anyway. If drive was removed while waiting properly for the copy to finish, result would still be the same. Removing a drive while copying is still busy will results in 1 corrupted file, not a whole range of strangely named folders.
It could be a one time mishap, it could happen again (to either the USB drive, or devices on the same USB port, or to any USB device on that computer, there's no telling right now)
It could be a one time mishap, it could happen again (to either the USB drive, or devices on the same USB port, or to any USB device on that computer, there's no telling right now)
If still the same, there's not much you can do. Formatting will probably fail as well. In case it does format, you still have to check how reliable it is (copy a lot of files over a longer period). Getting your data back send quite impossible though.