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Thumb Drive Doesn't Show Up

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JustinC - Jul 6, 2016 at 03:38 PM
R2D2_WD Posts 3606 Registration date Monday September 1, 2014 Status Member Last seen February 20, 2017   - Jul 11, 2016 at 03:13 AM
Hello,
My thumb drive has been showing error messages when installed. Today I let my laptop try to fix it, now every machine I put it in first says loading driver, then driver installed, but nowhere does my drive show up in Windows.

It does show in disk management as Removable (F:) and No Media. I've changed the drive letter to no effect, properties shows 0 MB capacity, 0 MB Unallocated space and 0 MB reserved space. Other usb things work (my HDD has plenty from the thumb drive but nothing for a few months), and I need the newer data for work.

Any help would be much appreciated!


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R2D2_WD Posts 3606 Registration date Monday September 1, 2014 Status Member Last seen February 20, 2017   155
Jul 7, 2016 at 05:19 AM
Hi JustinC,

Sadly, the No Media message may indicate a device failure. Changing the letter was a good idea. Does the drive has a letter now? Try running the Command Prompt and using the command:
Chkdsk D: /r

Replace D with the drive’s letter. I strongly recommend you to test the drive on another PC. Check the link below for some data recovery software. It may show good results retrieving your data.
https://ccm.net/downloads/tools/file-management/

Hope this helps

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JustinC
Jul 7, 2016 at 09:09 AM
Thanks, I have tested the drive on two other PCs and also tested someone else's drive on all three - they all worked but my thumb drive does not.

When I woke this morning the thumb drive showed under 'This PC' as 'F', but I couldn't open it and properties showed no data. I unplugged and plugged it in again and it doesn't show at all now, except in Disk Management (so I changed the drive letter to 'X') but still no luck.

It was showing messages saying it wasn't in the best of health, but after allowing Windows to 'fix it' I may have lost over 20 GB of data, most of which is backed up on my Windows laptop and HDD, thankfully.

I think the thumb drive is maybe three years old, but I rarely re-write anything on it, just use to store stuff (documents, lots of PPTs for teaching, a few videos, some songs) to be used mostly in class. Now I have to carry my precious HDD around and use it in lots of different PCs, which have been the subject of attacks via Hotmail recently - now Hotmail is banned from school computers.

I'll try to use the recovery tool.
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R2D2_WD Posts 3606 Registration date Monday September 1, 2014 Status Member Last seen February 20, 2017   155 > JustinC
Jul 8, 2016 at 03:36 AM
Having a backup of your data on another device is a great idea. Since your pendrive seems damaged and you may need to use your HDD instead, I recommend you to backup the data on your HDD. If you do not have another device, try using some cloud storage online. Sometimes it is really hard to explain why thumb drives fail, but they are really fragile devices.
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JustinC
Jul 8, 2016 at 12:44 PM
Thanks, I have the data on another, second HDD and my laptop, plus I got a new thumb drive and put what's needed in the near future on there.

I'm wary of the cloud, firstly because I don't want to share with anyone who gets my login details, secondly I don't feel cloud tech has enough history to be considered reliable, thirdly because I don't want to rely on WiFi to access important data.

My new thumb drive is made by Kingston, which has less capacity for the same price as my old (one year old, not three) one, but hopefully will be more reliable.

Thanks again for your replies.
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R2D2_WD Posts 3606 Registration date Monday September 1, 2014 Status Member Last seen February 20, 2017   155 > JustinC
Jul 11, 2016 at 03:13 AM
Sadly, you can never be 100% sure if the storage device is completely reliable. You are right, cloud storage may show some problems, but if not using public folders and setting up a good password may save you some trouble with lost data. If you do not like the idea of using a cloud, keep a copy of the most important data on the new thumb drive. This way you will have it on the hard drive and on the pendrive and this can be a reliable backup.
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