I have a problem with a 4Gb pendrive that I know can be repaired, just haven’t found the correct procedure. This flash (pen) drive was accidentally remove before 'shutdown" and now, cannot get it to “mount”. The data on it is insignificant, but, if possible, I’d like to keep it. Cannot format nor open this drive. Have run cat /proc/scis/scis and fsck. Will post results IF requested. I had another flash drive with the same symptoms and ended up junking it. Don’t want to/ need to do that again!!! I’d appreciate someone: anyone who could help out!
I tried to change the designation from G:\ to J:\ and it did nothing. I tried to mount it and got “Does not contain a recognized file system”. This is what has stopped me from being able to repair it. And, BTW, I have a Sandisk 16Gb that only shows 14.8 Gb, even when it’s “supposedly” blank? Any ideas on that (i.e. missing about a full Gb). Thank s for responding
I tried to “force mount” and got error report “lost boot designation”. Would “Boot-Repair” help me correct this? Could you recommend a procedure that would repair this pendrive for operation?
Thanks for the link/explanation. I understood there was to be a certain amount of difference between advertised and actual useage. However, I didn’t feel I should’ve lost 1.2Gb!!! I have an 8 Gb that actually allows for 7.6.Gb useage, so you see why I felt there’s a discrepency (7.6x2=15.2) Something that was not explained in the link was the manufactures also allow for a certian percentage of blocks for “reallocation”, thus reducing actual useage space. Anyway, yes it’s a"marketing" ploy and should be advertised in 'actual" and not 'assumed" Gb useage. BTW…any ideas about how to repair 'lost root designation"?
Rixter, If it were me, I would use Recuva from Piriform. It is a free product that only wants to install Google Chrome as a browser that you can decline through the installation options. This product will try and allow you to salvage the data from your drive (TO ANOTHER DRIVE!). After salvaging the data you can then reconfigure (format) the drive. Recuva will allow you to select the drive even without a drive letter.
_ _ I’ve tried Boot-Repair, Gparted, disk utility, and MSWin to try to "format the drive. I’ve tried to write all zero’s to it. I’ve tried DBAN DoD erasure…none of which worked. The problem is “lost boot designation”. I need to repai/rebulid that before I can do anything with the drive. I can “read” the disk, cannot write to it, I know what’s on the disk, but it’s not all that important.(LM17.1 rebecca). I just want/need to get the disk back into service. Funny, I’ve googled/binged that (lost boot designation) and am getting very little/next to nothing about it???. Are there Sandisk “techs” I can dispose at this sight? Perhaps this is a detail they may be able to help with. And please, I mean no offence to you or anyone who has tried to help. It’s just that noone seems to know what I’m talking about.
IS THERE A WAY TO FORCE MOUNT THIS PENDRIVE? I use a linux O.S. and when running dmseg, I get “buffer I/O error” . But what’s so puzzling is, when plugged in MSWin, I check the drive and get “healthy partiton” “drive OK” even though it won’t mount??? I know…with the price of flashdrives these days why even mess with??? Because I like to fix things…if possible! And, does this site offer any advice/help from their 'techs"? If so, how do I contact them?
Well, the drive is history. I tried 4 different pendrive" restoration programs and none could do a thing for it. It’s now on it’s way to the landfill. I want to THANK everyone who offered help/assisstence. I appreciated it!!
Thanks for the link. I’ll put this away for future reference. The pendrive is history. Tried 4 completely different programs to “repair” it and every one failed .Somehow, it destroyed the MBR and subsequently, couldn’t boot nor repair the MBR and wouldn’t mount. Seems a **bleep** shame, but that’s the second pendrive this machine/O.S. has destroyed in the past 2 months.
There is a manual procedure is available, maybe it helps you to resolve this problem. For the resolving this issue you need to follow below mention instruction
Open MS DOS Shell and Run this following command
Note: First you need to check your pen drive letter name that your computer system shows you after plugging. Here my computer showing me my pen drives letter name e:
It will check the corruption level of disk formation and repair the issues that is finding out
During the repairing process it show you warning message such as “the drive is not a Windows XP drive” that is no issue you can continue repairing procedure by pressing “Y”.
Once it’s done the repairing task, then it will ask you, do you want to save lost chains into files select yes.
Now all repairing process is done now you can see all data in your pen drive
This is very common procedure for resolving this corrupted pen drive problem. In case, through this command you unable to get back your data that means your pen drive is badly corrupted in this situation, I would suggest you try out a professional data recovery application that helps to recover SanDisk pen drive data without any complications. Read this article for getting brief information about this application: http://www.pendrive-datarecovery.com/sandisk/
Thank You for your response. I WILL keep this on file. Regrettfully, I’ve already discarded the pendrives for I had not found anything that would repair them, and your reply came a bit too late. I hope that anyone else who may be experiencing the problems I had, will see this post and be able to save their pendrives.
Take a look at this link http://www.repaircrashed.com/pen-drive/ it will show you how to avoid corruption issues in pen drive and method to repair the crashed pen drive.
I appreciate all who have offered to help me with this issue. I ended up discarding the drives before I got all of the repair information. If you’ll look back through the replies to this post, you’ll note that there were a few who deemed those drives “unrepairable” and I concurred! I will keep those posts that offered repair suggestions and hope that I never again, have to use them (LOL). I’m sure there is valuable information in these posts and I’m just sorry I didn’t get them in time to try to “save” the 2 drives I ditched. Now that the price of secondary/outside/external storage has “skyrocketed” , the information here should prove to be invaluable.
Rick
