Data Loss and Recovery from USB Flash Drives

USB flash drives are used every day to carry information. Pictures and videos, copies of work documents and music files are the most popular types of data placed on a USB drive. However, the increased portability of information comes with the increased risk of data loss.

Protecting Yourself from Data Loss

USB flash drives are small and mechanically fragile. They are easy to lose, and they are prone to damage. To help you protect yourself against loss of data, we compiled a list of tips that’ll hopefully help you stay put.

Two Sides of the Coin

With mobile media, there are always two sides of the coin when it comes to data loss. You can lose information that you need, or private (or commercial) data can leak out. As such, there are at least two different strategies to follow.

Preventing Data Loss

It’s very easy to protect yourself against data loss when using USB flash drives. Simply don’t put unique information on the flash drive, and you’ll be safe. To elaborate, always keep copies of files you carry on the USB drive somewhere else. And don’t use a flash drive as your only backup!

Preventing Information Leaks

To prevent leaks of sensitive information stored on portable media, make sure to use a proven encryption tool. For example, TrueCrypt is a free, open-source product that’ll reliably protect the content of your entire flash drive with strong encryption. Never store sensitive data unencrypted on a portable storage device!

Millions in Circulation

It’s hard to estimate how many USB flash drives are in circulation. Most computer enthusiasts own a few, while others don’t use them at all, carrying information in their smartphones instead. Either way, there are so many USB drives floating around it’s hard not to notice the niche.

Flash Data Recovery

The Undelete Company recognized the need for a dedicated data recovery solution designed specifically for USB flash drives, and released Flash Recovery, a tool that recovers information from a variety of solid-state media including all makes, models and sizes of USB flash drives. Whether you simply deleted a file from a USB flash drive, formatted the entire drive by an accident or experienced a crash followed by file system corruption, Flash Recovery will help you get your files back.

A lot of different tools are available to recover files from flash drives. Listed in no particular order:

• FAT Recovery (http://the-undelete.com/fat_partition_recovery.php): your number one choice. Recovers all types of files from all kinds of standard-compliant flash media, including formatted and corrupted cards. Note: “standard-compliant” means flash drives formatted with FAT or FAT32 only; this tool will NOT recover non-standard flash drives formatted with NTFS, HFS or ext2/ext3.
• D-Photo Recovery (http://the-undelete.com/photo_recovery.php): recovers photos and videos (only)
• The Undelete (http://the-undelete.com/undelete.php): recovers all types of deleted files (but does not handle formatted flash cards!)
• HDD Recovery Pro (http://the-undelete.com/windows_partition_recovery.php): recovers everything from every kind of media including flash; expensive!
• D-Photo Recovery (http://the-undelete.com/photo_recovery.php) to recover photos and videos
• 1st File Undelete (http://ntfs-recovery.com/file_undelete/file_undelete.php) to recover deleted files (does not recover formatted flash drives)
• 1st Drive Recovery (http://ntfs-recovery.com/drive_recovery/drive_recovery.php) to recover everything (expensive!)
• Mareew Media Recovery (http://mareew.com/media_recovery/media_recovery.php) recovers photos and videos
• Mareew File Recovery (http://mareew.com/file_recovery/file_recovery.php) undeletes deleted files
• Hard Drive Recovery (http://mareew.com/data_recovery/data_recovery.php) recovers everything (expensive!)