Fifteen years is a respectable age for a USB stick, and this one still had one last trick up its sleeve: the most brutal of the flash failures, the seen-but-not-reachable. Any laptop would show a complete listing of the contents, "it recognises the files and names and says they are there but won't open the pics", which is like trying to see your photos through glass. In technical terms, the directory itself has survived, whereas the connections between the names and their contents have failed, and/or the content itself has become unreliable beneath them. A listed-but-unreadable state is a filing problem, not an absence, and filing problems are always resolved by working on a copy, never on the ailing original.
| Media | A 15-year-old USB stick: all laptops list the photos by name, but none will open them. |
| Reported situation | USB stick · about 15 years in use · files and names are displayed on any laptop · photos won't open · pictures wanted back. |
| Fault class | File system or file-level corruption: the directory is readable, but the records that connect names to content (or the content itself) aren't. Images would normally be recovered from a read-only sector image, using either record repair or content carving. The risk is writing anything to the USB stick. |
| Equipment used | Hardware write-blocker so the stick physically cannot be altered; a full read-only sector image; R-Studio on the image to repair the file records and relink names to content; PhotoRec to carve images based on content where the file record has lost track of it; each picture opened as a preview before transfer to new media. |
The file system contains two different components: a catalogue (names, folders, dates) and a file map that shows the physical location of each file's data. The catalogue on this stick survives perfectly, so when you plug it into a laptop it will show you all of the pictures. The file map has not survived; if you ask for an image, the system follows a damaged reference to the wrong position, or to a spot the stick can no longer read cleanly, and it fails to open. The images themselves are one level below the file map, and having been stored on early flash memory for 15 years, it is a safe bet that most of them are still at the exact locations where they were written.
It's also important to consider age; let's just face it. Flash memory stores your data at a very small level (electrical charge) in each cell. If you have a stick that has been left in a drawer for many years, over time some of these electrical charges will start to drain off. The file records usually feel this first, long before the majority of the images are affected. This is exactly what this stick showed. Therefore: a good reason to use caution, not a good reason to panic. Read the entire stick once, soon, and never trust it again with storing anything.
We shield the stick (with its contents) from all external influences, as well as from our own. A "write-blocker" eliminates all possibility of making a modification to the data while each sector of the unit is imaged. All repair then happens on the image: broken records are restored and names are reconnected where the structures allow it. Where they don't, the images are carved out of the raw data, identified by what is stored in them (a JPEG will identify itself, whether named or unnamed). After recovery, each image that has been found is reviewed visually before being added to the count.
Write-blocked from the very beginning and imaged read-only in full. Working on the image, R-Studio takes the surviving catalogue and restores the links between names and their contents. Images that cannot be linked go to PhotoRec, which carves them out by matching content signatures rather than file structure. The two result sets are merged, every photo is reviewed as a preview to check it is intact, and the collection is delivered on fresh media, with the original stick returned, retired.
The images have been brought out from behind the glass and proven to open, not just shown in a list. This type of work is logical data recovery, and it runs on our simplest terms: a free diagnostic, reported within two working days of the stick arriving; one fixed written price; and you only pay if we recover your data. Fifteen years of waiting doesn't need to end with a thumbnail image that will not open.
Stop trying to open them. Every time you fail to open them, you are pushing another read through the same weak cells that already have issues, and if some program offers you the option of "repairing" your stick, say no. The reason for this is that a repair will write onto the stick, which in turn makes things worse. Don't copy the files off either; it's tempting, but copying these files will take the weak cells down the same broken path. What the stick needs is one slow, complete, write-blocked read of the entire drive, and after this point it can be retired. Get your quote first by calling 0800 689 0668 or using our free online diagnostic, then post the stick as it is, letting the image do all of the hard work.
Each of the genuine enquiries that have been turned into case files for customers in York and North Yorkshire has been anonymised to protect customer privacy. The diagnostic reasoning and the recovery method applied to each fault, on each piece of equipment, are also outlined in each case.
The pin is the doorway, not the data: rebuilt where the board will allow, read at chip level where the board won't
The chime is the doorbell. The controller never answers, so the memory is read directly, past it.
Seeing half of it doesn't mean recovering half of it. The computer's nagging loop ends at chip level, past the part that was damaged.
The diagnostic is free and done within 2 working days of your drive arriving, you get one fixed quote, and on logical faults you only pay if we recover your data. Start online or give the freephone a ring.