Everything from USB disappeared...

[Chim3ra]

So i have this Sony 8gb usb that i have been using for the last several months. never had a problem, totally loved it.

today, i wanted to print off some files from a desktop, so i don't have to load the printer drives into my MacBook. put the usb in the desktop (running Windows Xp), has no problem loading, i click and drag the files i need, print them, everything is fine.

so i remove my usb from the desktop, and plug it back into my macbook. empty. nothing, nada, empty. so i was like, "wtf?". i plugg it back into the desktop, same thing, nothing. back and forth and neither can see anything.

the info says that there IS stuff on the usb, (approx 4gb), so it means it didn't get deleted. i did also pull out the stick without "ejecting" because windows kept saying something was using it, when there was absolutely nothing even running on the computer.

so now i have a bunch of files that have become invisible.

any help? thanks!

 

[Chim3ra]

okay, now apparently everything is totally gone. the free space went from 4gb to 8gb.

so pissed.

 

[dancemat]

Hello there,

I'll do my best to help.

If you plug the Sony into your PC and then go to My Computer and right click on the device and go to properties. What filesystem is it using?

If it's just FAT and not FAT32 I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen. FAT is very flakey at the best of times and from my personal experience, although mac supports it. It often goes wrong more than it does right.

If you have data on there your best bet is to either use

TestDisk - The Photorec software will get your data back - but no filenames.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Alternatively you may want to use the more user friendly Recuva:

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

TestDisk is Mac + Windows

Recuva is Windows only

If you need help using these programs, let me know.

P.S. It is always a good idea to "Safely Remove" your hardware or shutdown your PC. If it is not allowing you to remove it. Not doing this can damage the memory stick. It doesn't shutoff the electronics, when you pull it out otherwise.

Hope that's helped