Flash Drive Data Recovery...Is It Possible?

[rockgremlin]

So the flash drive just went through the washing machine. Any way to recover the data? Or is it a lost cause?

Help...

[Alex]

Ya most undelete applications out there should recover it. It's just a FAT partition table.

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/

[sparker1]

Some of the bits went down the drain, but others may be lodged in the scum along the agitator blades. You might find some in the dryer, but if you hang your undies on a line the bits are blowing in the wind somewhere. Nice thing about it, if you have a discriminating washer, the bits you find will be porn-free (ie, all cleaned up). You're welcome.

[theking648]

I have recovered flash drives before but i haven't had any go through the wash.

before you plug it in take it apart and clean all the water out. the water will create a short and if you plug it in you'll fry the thing and then you can't recover anything.

[Gutpiler_Utahn]

The pro & con with flash drives is that the information is not written to the disk the way it is to a cd, floppy, or hard drive. It's electronically encoded. With that being said, I don't think it's likely that the drive will have survived the washing machine if not for the water, then for the detergent. You can try it, and I probably would just to be sure, but don't hold your breath. Sorry...

[theking648]

ya a 10% chance that you'll get anything

but if you get power to it with no files then you still might be able to get somthing.

[Gutpiler_Utahn]

I brought this up with my co-workers and a couple of them have washed and dried their flash drives multiple times and have both stated that the data was intact and it worked fine so long as the drive was 100% dry.

Good luck.

[R]

I know guys who have washed CF cards and used them the next day. It's the same technology. Just use a blow dryer on low to "cook off" the water (it'll take a while), then plug it in and see. If you have a Mac, I've used File Salvage to recover from a corrupt volume, with great success.

-R

[rockgremlin]

So it IS possible. After 48 hours of drying time (in my pocket, on heating vents, etc), the flash drive is fully operational, with no data lost...whew!

[Sombeech]

Actually, I was going to say if it's just an SD card that got wet for a while, it's unlikely that anything got lost at all, kind of like a CD. The data is on there, no moving parts....

With a USB drive, I'm going to say you're very likely to keep all of your data as well, and if the water gets inside the body and dries out later, you still should be good to go.

Unless the dirty water leaves a film, shorting out a few things the next time it's turned on or used.

[Alex]

An interesting test Justin, that's good to know! Thanks

[empty]

That's a real bummer. You can look into various recovery software like this https://www.pandorarecovery.com/flas...-recovery.html Just go into the restoration process with the understanding that you are probably not going to get back 100% of what was deleted, especially if there has been much time that has passed since the initial deletion. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.

[DiscGo]

Does your computer recognize it when you plug it in? Generally if Windows or OSX can't view it, it is VERY difficult to get it back. Sometimes GParted (on linux) can view what Windows & OSX cannot.

[Iceaxe]

Talk about rising the dead, this thread is 10 years old.

[DiscGo]

Talk about rising the dead, this thread is 10 years old.

You are totally right. I missed that.

[rockgremlin]

Talk about rising the dead, this thread is 10 years old.

LOL, I posted this back when Moses wore short pants.

And if the newest poster would've bothered to read the entire thread, he/she would've noticed that after 48 hours of drying out the flash drive worked just fine.