Frequent problems with USB flash, hard and floppy disk drives

Flash drive is not recognized
Cause: This generally happens when incorrect drivers are being installed on Windows 98 or ME. Windows 2000, XP and Vista have working drivers for most of the flash manufacturers.
Solution: If you experience such problems try placing the flash drive on other machine. If there is still no result the flash drive could be damaged.

Often the problem is software based and could be solved by reformatting the drive. Unfortunately this way you’ll lose all your data. When doing this please obtain the format utility directly from the flash drive manufacturer.

If the problem is on hardware level such as malfunctioning controller or damaged memory try consulting special service technician. Be warned that the repair cost will be equal to the price of a new device. So this method is recommended only for a unique data.

Flash drive is recognized, but you don’t have an access to its contents (corrupted or protected data).
Cause: Every flash drive now has a data protection software or specific file system folders or partitions lock (NTFS, WinFS, ReiserFS, XFS).
Solution: If data reading is still impossible here are some programs that might help you: GetDataBack, R-studio, iRecover, FileScavenger, DataRestore, ZipRepair.

Hard drive is not recognized by BIOS or is recognized incorrectly
Cause: There is a possible physical damage in the chipset electronics or mechanical problems around the hdd plates and heads.
Solution: Contact qualified service technician. For those that will want to try: download PC 3000 and surf around www.hddguru.com forums.

Hard disk have bad sectors and data cannot be read from
Solution: Try to correct the bad sectors with HDD regenerator. Then use programs for logical restoration.

The Windows OS is not loading
Cause: There are logical failures that restrict the data access. Usually the problem is within the OS.
Solution: Connect the hdd as a secondary drive to a computer with working operation system and try copying data from the damaged drive. Be careful - it’s highly recommended to install antivirus software on the computer. If data loss is due to a destructive virus antivirus will stop its spreading on the new machine.

Data loss due to incident format or file deletion
Solution: Try these restore programs: Get DataBack, R-Studio 3.6, Flobo floppy bad sector repair or some of the applications listed here http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/.

No application could guarantee you fully data recovery, so do frequent archives and data backup.