Recover files from SanDisk USB after simple copy

Hoping someone here can help. My sister bought SanDisk Cruzer from a retail store and popped it into a laptop, copied the important files and folders over to the SanDisk, and then e-wasted the laptop. She asked me to look at her SanDisk because the files have been encrypted automatically apparently.

She gave me the drive and I can see the files and copy them to my computer. But none of them will open, all are encrypted.

My sister says she did not run any encryption app, she just copied the files. I asked if she were to set this up, what password would she use and she gave me her universal password that is the only one she would have used here (if for some reason it did ask her and she forgot).

I inserted the drive and ran the SanDiskSecureAccessV3.1.exe and gave it this password in the setup screen.

The files are all still viewable, but encrypted. I have found no way to recover any of these files.

Is there a method to recover in this situation? We made copies of the drive before doing anything, in case that is needed.

Any help would be appreciated,
Charn

Hi @charn,

Secure access will create a private vault in your drive which will help you to encrypt your sensitive data in the vault. You cannot create a password on entire drive.

We request you to follow the below link to know more information about the secure access application:
https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2399

Yes but we only copied files to the SanDisk Cruzer drive and never ran the private vault. The SanDisk encrypted the files even though we never ran the executable. I only ran that after we were unable to open any files up after the simple copy.

Does just simply copying a file to this SanDisk Cruzer automatically encrypt it? If so, what are the steps to decrypt?

It seems insane that it would work this way. We just want to copy files back and forth without the risk of losing them to this software.

Eric

Hi @charn,

Please refer below link to help you with trouble shooting steps:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/utils/login_form