Okay, in a nutshell I accidentally formated my Sansa Clip, I didn’t have any back-up for the files and now I want to retrieve them.
Now, before any of you drown me in questions about why I didn’t back the files up or how I accidentally formated the MP3 player, just promptly back-up and answer my question.
I used the Sansa Clip between two computers, a desktop PC and an iBook, a good chunk of the files came from the iBook and I’m pretty sure those were in MSC mode and about four-hundred or so came from the desktop. If I run a File Recovery program, will I have to switch between USB modes (MSC and… the other one) to get the files or can I just plug it in, get my stuff, and be happy all in one swing?
Thanks a lot, and Happy New Years~ <3
I don’t know the answer to your question–I’d try a flash drive recovery utility under one MSB mode, and then try it under the other. Given that you formatted the Clip, I don’t know what the chances are, but it’s easy enough to try it both ways.
By the way, I’ve read good things about the freeware Pandora Recovery, available at download.com.
I think the chances of getting anything back are slim, I’ve always found the claims made by people pushing recovery software to be optimistic to say the least. For cards containing .jpg images, programs will recover from a formatted disk. I believe they do this by knowing the type of header or other information they are looking for and can search for same. Unless something similar exists for .mp3 I don’t see how it could be done. The data is all there, you just need something that can make sense of it. Don’t confuse formatting with deletion. If you delete all the files from a disk, essential information is still retained in the file directory that can be used. Formatting zero’s out the directory table, hence my pessimism.
