Tech help - urgent

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
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My pen drive suddenly stopped working today. It wasn't full or anything but I can't seem to access it either at home or at work.

Any ideas if the situation is recoverable?
 
Go to the device manager in your computer and locate your drive to see whether there’s a yellow exclamation mark or not.If yes then reboot your PC keeping your pendrive connected and let Windows allow it to install it.If it still doen’t get detected then try connecting it in another PC.If still no mprovement,then your pendrive is probably damaged.
 
The 'removable disk' icon isn't coming up so it looks like the laptop isn't recognising the pendrive. And the little red light in the pendrive isn't flashing.

I don't understand it. I plugged it into my PC at work at 7.30am and used it right through to 10.40am. I didn't take it out or shut down or log off my PC or even touch the pendrive but when I went to bring up a document from it I needed at 10.20 there was no indication that the PC was picking it up. Same when I tried it on a colleague's PC.

While I have some of the files backed up, there are years' worth of PowerPoints, worksheets etc, representing probably thousands of hours of work. I'm gutted.
 
Doesn't sound great DO. I would recommend that in future you back up all your files online eg Dropbox.

Wish you luck in trying to get it back operational
 
A colleague at work says there's a wee computer shop guy in Glasgow who might be able to fix it. He reckons it's a little soldering job which might set me back a tenner. That sounds hopeful. While I know I can buy two new pen drives for a tenner the work on the failed one is priceless to me.
 
Sometimes can be a connection, grip it firmly and adjust slightly in the PC, you might find you get it connected, for long enough to get the files from it anyway.
 
Tried that too, Steve (techie in work suggested it), to no avail.

I remembered there's a computer shop in the village so took it there this afternoon and they seem quite hopeful (given it was in the PC and working one minute and not the next so physical damage is unlikely) they can recover the files. They said if they can't do it they know someone who can, which is another hopeful route.
 
:D:D Success!! :D:D

The local shop sorted things out for me. They say it was a hairline crack in the casing and that they did manage to get a connection by holding it in a certain way (God knows how much I tried that!) and transferring the files across.

Cost me a tenner including the new 4GB pen drive they transferred everything to. Can't complain about that!!
 
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Glad it's fixed but let this be a lesson to you, switch to Google Drive, Dropbox or Sky Drive tonight.

Happened to me two years ago and I lost a full month's worth of betting records.
 
Are those 'cloud' storage?

If so, I'm afraid I don't trust such sites with personal stuff. Junk e-mail etc is fine but private work, no. I have a separate hard drive to which I've copied everything. That way I'm in control of it.

It's a lesson I have learned and am passing on to everyone I know.
 
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Cloud is secure DO. Hardware based backups are crazy now. Cloud storage is used by plenty of the banks now.
 
I'm old, Digger. I have an inherent mistrust of such stuff. It sounds like stuff is 'out there' and therefore accessible - or should I say hackable - to anyone with the mind to do so.

I'm not sure how it can be secure. I'll need to gen up on it. I appreciate your reassurance.
 
Gamla Stan said:
Glad it's fixed but let this be a lesson to you, switch to Google Drive, Dropbox or Sky Drive tonight.

Happened to me two years ago and I lost a full month's worth of betting records.
Click to expand...


Thank you GS, I saw this and put a copy of the the Ten To Follow spreadsheet with all its built in formulas and links on Dropbox two days ago and this morning I had a message the files on both my pc and my back up disc were damaged and they wouldn't open. Thank God I saw your post, would have taken a few hours to recreate everything. Saved the day.
 
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