GIMP Version: 2.6.11
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: windows 7 (64-bit)
GIMP Experience: Basic Level

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I had two years of images and tutorials on this 16GB USB pen drive, plus passwords and several other stuff. I also burned a Ubuntu ISO to a boot disk in there.

I was messing around with that this afternoon and it wouldn't go right into the "try it button" and it was after that I noticed everything was gone.

Now I can't even put a tiny jpg in there, it says it has no room but there isn't anything in there.

Is there a way to get this back or am I up the creek?

HELP!

Wow Molly sorry to hear that.
Are you sure the files in the flash drive aren't hidden and the flash drive is actually full?

Sorry to hear about that Molly. I use to do PC repair and have, unfortunately, heard similar stories way too many times. I tried to tell them you don't have a backup unless you have 2; it's only a data storage or data transfer device otherwise. Not sure of any decent recovery programs for flash drives but I do know they exist. Maybe someone here with experience in that will bud in to this thread. Hope you do get those pictures back.

Check to see how much space is available on the flash drive. This will tell you if the files are still there, or not.

I am assuming you can actually access the drive to see free space, right?

If you can get that far, all might not be lost. It's possible the files were somehow dumped into the trash (on the usb drive).

If you can access the drive at all, set your file browser to view hidden files and see what you can find.

The files might just be logically deleted and can be retrieved. Don't write anything else to the drive until you are sure that's not the case.

Sometimes those USB drives just die, never to be accessed again. They aren't very reliable when it comes to storing files. They should be used for temporary storage only. Hopefully, yours is not dead.

Tux is right; one of my own Flash Drives (a 2Gigs) blew up on me. They definitely should be thought of as temporary storage or sinc'ed storage with another storage device (hard-drive).

Show hidden files is already selected.
I can get into the usb and it shows as empty.
I don't see a trash bin in the folder options.

edit: there is one box in there that says: "restore previous windows at login"

It says 1.10 MB Free of 1.38 MB and this is a 16GB USB

Right click on drive and click properties to see how much space it says is used and available.

It says used space 294 KB Free space 1.10 MB Capacity 1.38 MB

Just saw you last post. Seems like you're only seeing one partition on a drive with multiple partitions (or you only have one partition on that drive and the rest of the space is now unallocated.)

You need a tool like Puppy Linux (boots from CD) that allows you to see and mount each of the partitions on the drive.

It's pretty easy if you have used Puppy Linux before.

Actually, plugging the drive into any version of Linux will allow you to see and mount various partitions. Methods differ slightly between Linux versions.

Windows only sees one partition? If there are multiple NTFS partitions, Windows should see them.

So, are you saying I should look for Puppy Linux, try to burn it onto a CD. I have never heard of it but I am willing to try anything.
I don't know of anyone, except the people here in GC that has Linux.

Do you have or have you ever used Linux?

If not, it sounds to me like the drive has been re-partitioned and formatted to 1.5g. If you have other Windows formatted partitions on that USB drive, Windows should see those formatted partitions, mount them and assign a drive letter to them.

I guess I'm not really that clear as to what happened to cause this issue. Any more details on that?

By the way, if you formatted the drive using Fat16. The maximum partition size is 2gig. So. it doesn't matter how big the drive is, it will only show 2Gig (or less)

I downloaded Ubuntu made into an iso and burned to my flash. I don't want to install it until I know it better. It has the option to try it. I clicked try it and it sat there about 30 minutes and wouldn't do anything. I then got out of it. Later I went into Windows and tried to open it again and I saw that all my image files, tutorials, pass words etc all gone, the folder for the ubuntu was also gone. I ran it a couple of times earlier in the day.

EDit: As far as I know, nothing was partitioned. I don't know how to partition

So you downloaded an Ubuntu ISO and copied it to your flash drive, correct?

You say you "burned" it to your flash drive. You just copy & pasted it over to the USB drive, right?

Which ISO did you download?

I downloaded this, then followed the installation and created a bootable USB stick. I followed the directions that were in the show me how box beside the Try it. http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

Ok, that looks to be your problem. Unless you shrink your current Windows partition on the pen drive and make room for a Linux partition, it will most likely use whatever space it sees to create a bootable Linux USB drive. It will simply overwrite the current Windows partition unless you direct it not to.

You really should have backed the data on your Pen drive before attempting to use it as a Linux boot device. If the data is still there, I'm not sure how to access it, other than burning a bootable Linux CD (Puppy Linux) and looking around to see if you can find anything.

Maybe some else has better suggestions but that's about all I got..

Thank you very much Tux for all your help. If it is gone, then its gone. I have learned a valuable lesson and hope others learn from it too. I tried to get that puppy thang but I will try again tomorrow.
M.

Yvw. It doesn't have to be a Puppy Linux CD. You can use an Ubuntu live CD or a Fedora Live CD. Either of those three will let you look around on the USB Pen drive for data. Puppy is what I use for data recovery so I'm more comfortable using it and I find it easy to use.

ok, I have a Fedora boot disk made and also a Ubuntu CD made, will try them tomorrow.

First, I would like to suggest that you not do anything that would write to the pen drive. You want to recover any date before it is written over.

Next I would try a file recovery program.
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
Recuva is one of the programs that I use. It is a windows program. It will find files on the drive and has two modes. One searches for files that are in the table but you can't see anymore which is probably what you want. The second mode searches the whole drive for files, even those that were deleted. It rates the chances of a successful recovery of each file. You can just have the program copy all or what you select to your hard drive. You can even select which files to look for, such as pictures or video. It is free and comes from the same company the does CCleaner.

Let me know how it works! I will try to work you through it.

I feel guilty about this:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3357

Please tell me that you understood when I told you to do a backup of the flash drive into a hard disk. Maybe my bad English. Did you do the backup?

I will try to follow the steps you've done experimenting with a pendrive, to see how I can help you.