my pen drive just stopped working.... the LED went faulty last night, but i just removed and re-inserted it and then everything was ok.
This morning it was still plugged in, and working normally (reading and saving), even though I noticed the LED was off.
I then took it out of the USB port on a laptop to save my data on another computer and found that now it won't run AT ALL in ANY of the several USB ports of the 3 computers I tested. All other USB devices are running normally. I even unscrewed the pen to look inside and see if I could find anything loose or broken, but to no avail. What do I do now to salvage my data --which was just on the way to be backed up when this tragedy happened?

shari, March 2006

"just on its way to be backed up" DOH! okay, fist of all try get hold of a program called "rescue my files" its a great bit of data recovery kit and it works on pen drives too, however, opening the pen drive may have caused more harm than good... there are no servicable parts inside and its put together in a dust free environment as even the smallest of dust particles can cause a short. Anyhoooow..... Get the software and burn it to CD. install the software. Plug in the pendrive and search for new hardware, if it doesnt find it unplug the pen, reboot then put the pen back in when the O/S has booted. if it doesnt automatically detect then search again for new hardware. If this doesnt work try on another machine. If it fails then it bound to be the pen that is dead... the only way around it that I know of is to send it to a data recovery specialist who specialises in dead pen drives or your second option (the one I always end up doing) start typing all those documents again.

Jasonm, October 2006