Can I recover data from a flash drive that is no longer readable?

A flash drive that I left plugged into my MacBook Pro is no longer readable. Are there ways to recover the files that were (are?) stored there?

I see that the suggested programs are $80 to $100. Are there any cheaper alternatives or should I just throw this thumb drive away (all the data on it is backed up elsewhere)?
Is this normal for a thumb drive to fail?

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Can I recover data from a hard drive that has crashed?

My computer had frozen up so I had to restart it by holding down the power button. After I had done this, I kept getting a recurring kernel panic error. I had taken my MacBook the Apple Store and the tech who looked at it said that my hard drive was no longer good and that I would either have to replace it or purchase a new laptop. Regardless of whether I replace my hard drive or just purchase a new laptop, would there be any way to get my data that I lost off my old hard drive. I have some stuff backed up, but not recent data.
I appreciate any advice. Thanks

You could try putting the old hard drive into an external hard drive case since it sounds like the drive isn't completely dead.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/SATA-Hard-Drive-Case-Enclosure/dp/B001AAVA08/ref=pd_cp_e_0

How can I access files from a flash drive that were previously saved using a Windows computer? When I attempt to open the file on MacBook Pro, it is asking to "convert file to"; I also have Microsoft Word installed on the Mac as well.

How can I access files from a flash drive that were previously saved using a Windows computer? When I attempt to open the file on MacBook Pro, it is asking to "convert file to"; none of the options I choose work. I also have Microsoft Office (with Word) installed on the Mac as well.

Format the external drive as FAT32 or ExFAT. Both computers will then be able to read and write to it.

Recover data from external hard drive that was Windows format and connected on a Macbook Pro. Did I lose everything? What happened?

Hi there this is my first question here!
I connected my external hard drive originally formatted on PC on my new Macbook. The first time I connected it I could see all my files but today I connected it and after I couldn't see any file nor even on my pc appears as NO NAME with a different name and nothing on it. I think was reformatted, any help to recover all my data?
It's really important stuff for me

If the Apple Store couldn't get files off of the drive, it is unlikely that you will be able to. If you have backups, those would be the best way to go. You could also try booting up the computer and holding down T to boot into Target Disk Mode. Plug the broken computer into another one with FireWire and see if it works to recover data from external hard drive. If you can see it, try booting up the broken computer while holding down Option. Choose Recovery HD from the menu, then choose to Reinstall OS X.
It is unlikely that this will work, because I'm pretty sure that the Apple Store would have tried this. You could try using expensive software to get files off the drive, but it would be risky and the results might not be any good.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4273

Can I recover data from a reformatted hard drive? I did not do a back up prior to talking to Apple Support and the guy having me delete the hard drive and start anew. My bad but is all lost??

Can I recover data from a reformatted hard drive? I did not complete a back up prior to talking to Apple Support and the guy having me delete the hard drive (10.5.8) and start anew (10.6.3). My bad but is all lost?? Years of very important information....

You will need to purchase reovery sofware such as such as FileSalvage
http://subrosasoft.com/software/filesalvage
You can download a demo copy that will tell you what it can recover
If you want to recover that you must pay for the software then
When you do the recovery, you will need another disk drive to receive the recovered files
Having install a new operating system on the disk after the retformat is going to gradually reduce the amount of data that this software will be able to recover for you
Allan

How to recover data from bad hard drive

Once a hard drive goes bad (cannot get into the computer), is there any hope of recovering any data from it? If so, how?

Do you mean the hard drive is mechanically broken for sure? It's not a data corruption issue that is causing a problem with starting up the Mac, but maybe not be a bad mechanism?
If the drive is definitely broken, there are businesses that specialize in recovering data from bad hard drives. For example
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/ (I always saw their booth at MacWorld Expos...)
The cost of such services is usually high.
cannot get into the computer
So that probably means the hard drive in question is the internal drive? If you don't know for sure that the hard drive is physically broken, you can try starting up using your Mac OS X installation disc. Insert disc in optical drive and start up with the C key held down. When you get to Installer's screen, go up to the menu bar and run Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Does the internal drive appear in the Disk Utility sidebar?
Alternately, if you have another Mac (that has FireWire), you can try starting the Mac with the problem in FireWire Target Disk Mode,
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Connect the "target" Mac to the other Mac (running normally) using a FireWire cable. Run Disk Utility on that Mac. Does the hard drive of the Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode appear in the sidebar?
If you can get the internal drive to appear in Disk Utility, you may be able to run Repair Disk on the First Aid tab. There are also third-party utilities, such as TechTool Pro (Micromat), Drive Genius (Prosoft), and Disk Warrior (Alsoft), that may be able to fix (or at least recover data from) the hard drive.

I can not transfer date from one hard drive to another, I keep getting an error because I have two of the same file names and one file name is in caps and I cant change the file name

can not transfer date from one hard drive to another, I keep getting an error because I have two of the same file names and one file name is in caps and I cant change the file name. My original external has an error and needs to be reformatted but I dont want to lose this informations its my entire Itunes library.

Sounds like the source drive is formatted as case sensitive and the destination drive is not. The preferred format for OS X is case insensitive unless there is a compelling reason to go case sensitive.
Why can't you change the filename? Is it because the source drive is having problems? If so is this happening with only one or two or a few files? If so the best thing would be to copy those over individually and then rename them on the destination drive.
If it is more then you can do manually and you can't change the name on the source you will have to reformat the destination as case sensitive.
Btw this group is for discussion of the Support Communities itself, you;d do better posting to Lion group. I'll see if a host will move it.

How to transfer quicken data from a flash drive to quicken essentials

How do I transfer my Quicken data from a flash drive to Quicken essentials with new Lion Os software?

https://qlc.intuit.com/app/full_page#

A message saying I had to restore my iPad to factory settings came up, can I recover data from previous back-ups?

Tonight, a message came up on iTunes came up saying I need to restore my iPad to factory settings came up. Is there any way I can avoid doing a factory restoration? If not, can I recover data from previous backups?

If you got the message that you need to connect to iTunes, there is no choice now but to restore the iOS software. Yes, you can restore from a backup after you restore the iOS software.
You can only restore now by connecting to your computer and using iTunes, and at the end of the restore process, you will be asked if you want to restore from your iTunes backup to which you will say yes and then sync your iPad as well. Syncing will transfer all of your apps, music, movie, books, photos etc, back to the device. If you do not backup and sync with iTunes, you can still restore from an iCloud backup after you restore the software in iTunes.
How to backup and restore from a backup
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

How do I import music from a flash drive that was formatted with a windows PC to my MacBook?

How do I import music from a flash drive that was formatted with a windows PC to my MacBook - the drive is showing it has over 3GB of info on it but none of the files are showing up in finder? I had backed up my iTunes library on the flash drive about a year and a half ago before I switched from a dell to a MacBook pro.

What I found works for me is to make sure iTunes keeps the music files organzied in the iTunes Media folder according to album, artists, etc. and that it copies the music files there when adding them to the library. That way, if something happens to the library, the raw files can always be re-imported again.

Recovering data from external hard drive

I backed up music,pictures and personal documents
It said backup was successful, I they to retrieve some documents and none of the those files were in that restored folder

Very similar with your experience
Last time when I was in Rio, I took part in the famous Carnival there with my boyfriend and we took a lot of interesting photos there. About one week ago, one of my friends asked me to show her the photos. However, it turned out to be inaccessible and the PC can not read the data on the drive. And the PC suggested me to format the external hard drive for reusing it again.
people often lose their data from External hard drive, a handy external hard drive data recovery software will be highly recommended to you, ---- EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, Then click next button
Select the disk where you lost your data and click Scan button, the software will quickly scan the selected disk to find your target files.
Watch the video below, step by step, you can recover your data.
https://youtu.be/ZA4XzL1mD1s

How to recover data from a hard drive with bad blocks?

An external hard drive, 4TB Iomega...connected via eSATA cable...had a power outage and the drive won't be read by OSX now. (Yes, it was on a surge protector and no I did not have a backup. I was actually preparing for the process of creating a backup when the power went out!) Anyway, I have tried using Data Rescue 3 and DiskDrill to try and recover data from the drive. I can recover the first 1/3 of the drive, but it ejects when either app tries to access the bad block. Can anyone tell me how/what software to use to recover the data? I know there are programs that will avoid the bad block but I've only found them for Windows. Are there any that will do such a thing in Lion? Any help will be appreciated...and no, I can not afford a data recovery service. Trying to do this on my own.

Basics of File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Can I transfer data from one external drive to another using my MacAir as a platform?

I am trying to transfer about 94 Gigs of data from one external drive (Touro) to another (Seagate) using my Mac Air which only has about 14 Gigs of available space. How best can I accomplish this operation?

Niel - I know that I must be a real dunce on this. I tried opening the additional window on finder and then dragging and dropping from the Touro drive to the other open finder window for the Seagate drive. Again, it bounced back. What is NTFS? And how do I find if either or both of the drives are formatted in that manner?
Again, thanks for you help on this.
JC
PS I just got the info on the Seagate that it is Windows NTFS formatted. What do I do now? Is Paragon something I can download off the Internet? Why, since I formatted the Seagate to run on my Mac Air would there still be a problem? The packaging on the Seagate says it is compatible with Mac OS systems. jc

Recovering data from "crashed" hard drive - white macbook

I have a 13" white macbook (my daughter's macbook). It looks like the hard drive crashed. She took it to Apple store they told her they can replace the hard drive (still under Apple care), but I am trying to get the data from the hard drive.
I pulled the hard drive out of the macbook, and put it in a external hard drive enclosure, with USB2 connector. Unfortunately I have to connect the USB to a Windows PC, since that's what I have (she took my PowerBook for school work). The wondows machine does not recognize the hard drive. I tried to connect to a Vista machine and an XP machine same problem.
Do I have to connect it to a Mac to be able to recognize this hard drive? I thought as long as I put it in a external disk enclosure I will be able to recognize it even with Windows machine.
I would appreciate any help.
p.s. I do hear (faint) clicking noise from the hard drive - both when it is in the macbook and when it is in the external enclosure.
Thanks.

The enclosure is format "agnostic". A drive could conceivably be formatted in several different Apple formats; HFS+ (aka Mac OS Extended) is likely what you have. There's Windows based FAT32 or NTFS.
Windows doesn't properly recognize Mac drive formats unless you add software. There are a couple of commercial tools that might work.
http://www.macdisk.com/mden.php3
tp://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/

NB100 - How can I reinstall OS from USB flash drive

My TOSHIBA NB 100 notebook does not have CD-DVD drive.
OS is Windows XP Home SP2.
OS is not booting.
Notebook won't start at all so I cannot run any sort of test when i turn it on.
The we apologize screen come on it says run safe mode, safe mode networking, safe mode comand prompt or start windows normally. But no matter which I chose it won't start it only goes to Windows and seems like its starting but then shows the blue Windows screen & stays there.
So I want to reload Windows from my USB flash drive.
The BIOS boot sequence is HDD - FDD - FD - CD - USB Memory.
What are the steps for loading Windows from USB flash drive?
If this does not work then I want to connect another laptop with Windows CD in its CD-DVD drive to the Notebook.
Will this work? Will the Notebook use the Windows CD in the laptop drive to load the OS?
How to do this connection?

Hi
Usually you would need an external USB CD/DVD drive in order to boot from the Windows XP disk or Toshiba recovery disk.
But there is a method which allows you to install the Win XP using 2GB USB flash drive.
This is possible because the BIOS of NB100 support the booting from USB memory stick.
Pease check this internet page:
+Installing Windows XP Using A USB Flash Drive+
http://www.pctipsbox.com/installing-windows-xp-using-a-usb-flash-drive/
Hope it could be helpful.

Can I recover data from a flash drive that is no longer readable?

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