FLash Drive Disconnects for one folder

Misf0rtune

Reputable
Aug 10, 2017
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Okay maybe not one... I have a SanDisk flash drive. It's pretty old... I'm trying to pull some files off of it, and if I go through the folders, it disconnects...

I decided I would just try to copy the files and it worked ...mostly.. if I pulled them one by one, I noticed there were only problems with 2 folders. If I tried to copy those two folders, it would disconnect.

So I kept trying, and eventually I managed to copy one by just constantly reinserting the drive (surprisingly, nothing is corrupt)...

The other one... Is impossible. I only hover over it, and the flash drive disconnects. I think the file I'm looking for is in this specific folder...which is absolutely unlucky. I managed to get into it at one point, and I started looking through the folders one by one, hoping to find my file. Each folder causes me to lose connection at some point.

And again, amongst these folders is one that causes insta-disconnects...

I really need to find a way to copy these files. Is there anything? I've tried backing up the flash drive, and it instantly disconnects.. I've tried using other computers -- my computer is the only one that even lets me go through the folders (I'm using a desktop, and the other computers are all laptops). I've tried repairing the drive but it disconnects before it even starts. I went into disk management, and it shows that the drive is connected, but it shows no media..

Are there any other options I can try? I'm getting desperate... Thanks.
 
Flash memory stores data by trapping a charge in a cell. This cell slowly dissipates over time. So eventually, the data becomes unreadable. On a SSD, most SSD controllers will try to read the cell over and over again until it gets a value which matches the checksum (indicating a correct read). This is what caused the Samsung EVO 840 drives to slow down (premature charge dissipation combined with hundreds of read retry attempts). Thumb drives don't typically have this feature.

Since the drive is disconnecting, it sounds more like the formatting data has degraded, not necessarily the data itself. The computer is interpreting the read failure as a drive failure, and disconnecting it. I'm not sure there's any way to get around this. Maybe something that does a raw read of the individual drive sectors (so it doesn't care about formatting), or boot off a Linux live CD and use the dd tool to make a drive image.

http://www.z-a-recovery.com/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_cloning#Create_disk_image

You may also want to try this trick which showed up when I was searching for raw read tools.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2159346/fix-logical-damaged-usb-drive-raw-mode-accessable.html
 



Thanks so much for your response. I made attempts based on the information you sent. Unfortunately, I think you may be right about the data just being unreadable. Time to let go of this drive's information, unfortunately.

Thanks again for helping!