Recovering files from corrupted USB drive help?

[Mayarose]

Help for recovering files from corrupted USB drive?
The USB flash drive is Sandisk, 4GB, formatted for Mac.

It became corrupted and I don't have access to stored files.
The messages on screen is that disk can not be read and invitation to reformat it...

I found special software for recovering files from corrupted drives but it is not affordable for a student like me...

I've tried to find in forums and word of mouth some shareware/freeware working on Mac OS 10.3.9 but all I got is programs that take space on HD and do nothing, that is, software that is about selling and marketing stuff, not the real thing. Tried with 3 different such a programs, sheer time wasting!
I found that this area is pretty much absolutely dark!
The replies on forums are in general at idle babble level indicating that there is no much knowledge around.

So, do experienced and educated fellow mac users know about some
truly working shareware/freeware that can help me retrieve the files from this corrupted Sandisk USB flash drive?

Thanks for any specific advise!
Maya

 

[juyle]

this may sound obvious but did you try it on another computer ?

i remember having a corrupted sd card and couldn't find a software to get my datas back ...

 

[KoolStar]

Try using diskwarrior on it.