In our age, you can’t go anywhere without a flash drive, especially if you are an office worker. Everyone has at least one memory card and it’s not surprising that it’s lying around in your pocket along with other small items. And just imagine, you threw your favorite jeans into the wash, but didn’t check the pockets, washing along with them a flash drive, inside of which there was “a year of painstaking work” in the form of text documents, images, videos. There is something to be upset about! The first thought is how to recover data from a memory card, at least partially, but is it worth falling into despair ahead of time? Let's sort it out in order.
Urgent actions
There is an old and wise saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, in our case it can be interpreted as “Don’t store all your data on one storage medium”. And, indeed, no matter how reliable the data storage device is, there are all sorts of cases, so after updating the information on a flash drive, you need to make a backup copy, saving it on your computer’s hard drive or another flash drive.
You can make a backup copy of the data contained on a flash drive in a few minutes, but restoring data from it is a long and painstaking job, without a 100% guarantee of a positive result.
All this is good, but we remember this simple wisdom only when something happens to the memory card. And now, the flash drive has been washed, but it’s not clear what to do. Experts advise taking a number of urgent measures that will most likely help save not only valuable data, but also the flash drive itself from damage.
While washing in the washing machine, the flash drive was filled with hot and soapy water, it dangled inside the drum, subjected to shock loading. Therefore, the first thing you should do is disassemble its case (we make an exception for waterproof drives with a non-separable case). Under no circumstances try to connect a memory card to test it, it is dangerous!
Pour some alcohol into a suitable container and dip the memory card into this liquid.
After holding the device in alcohol, we rub it with an old toothbrush, being careful not to damage the semiconductor elements located on the small circuit board.
We take a regular hairdryer and start drying the flash drive. This must be done carefully so that its contacts do not oxidize during operation, and a short circuit does not occur, which will definitely destroy the memory card, possibly along with the computer.
After drying the flash drive, you can check it by inserting it into the computer. If the flash drive has been dried efficiently, it will continue to work as if no washing had taken place.
Will the data be saved or not?
In approximately 80% of cases, the flash drive will work and the data stored on it will not be affected. Enthusiasts even conducted experiments on this matter. We washed 10 flash drives at once, not protected by a waterproof case, in the washing machine along with cotton sheets. They didn’t spare much, they set the washing mode at a temperature of 900C, double rinse and spin. In addition, poured the usual dose of washing powder and poured fabric softener.
The conditions for a regular memory card are simply monstrous: boiling water, and a lot of chemicals, not to mention shock loads.
After washing, or more accurately called boiling, the flash drives were removed, disassembled, washed in alcohol and treated with a toothbrush. Finally dried it using a hair dryer. And what is the result? The result, to tell the truth, was very surprising - 8 out of 10 flash drives worked as if nothing had happened. It was not possible to read data from only two drives, but this turns out to be not critical. If desired, the information can be restored, and you can do it all yourself.
How to recover lost data?
Even if you own a computer at the level of a novice user, you can try to recover the data that was stored on a flash drive yourself. To do this, you will have to download special software, run the appropriate programs and save the files to your computer’s hard drive.
We will now give examples of programs that will help you with this, and tell you how to use these programs. But you must remember that by using these programs, you take responsibility for the result. If the files stored on the flash drive are very important, is it worth the risk? Perhaps it’s better to trust a specialist? Are you looking for easy ways? Then read the article to the end.
So, in order to recover information from an erased memory card, you need to download some computer programs that are quite easily found on the Internet. What programs are these?
Recuva;
R-studio;
Easy Recovery.
What happens if we use one of them, for example a program called Recuva. You need to do the following.
Find and download this program and install it on your computer.
After launching the program, the wizard will immediately offer you the types of files that can be recovered.
If you want to restore all data, check the box next to “all files”. Will this make the program run longer? Of course, but for the sake of valuable data, you can wait.
Next, we will need to indicate where the files that need to be restored were stored. We indicate the entire flash drive.
Check the box next to “Enable in-depth analysis” and click the “start” button.
We are patient and wait until the program finishes collecting data.
As soon as the list of files available for recovery appears, check the boxes next to what we need and click the button located in the lower right corner of the “recover” window.
Now we just have to indicate where the files will be saved (computer hard drive) from the damaged memory card and wait until the program performs the necessary actions.
Well, that’s all, let’s evaluate the results of the file recovery program. Some documents (especially text ones) may be only partially restored, but it is already difficult to do anything about it. Better this than nothing!
So, what happens if you wash a flash drive in an automatic washing machine along with other things? If you don’t think of sticking it wet into a USB port to check its functionality, then nothing special. Most often, after drying, the memory card works as if nothing had happened. But if you are unlucky and the data is lost, you can try to recover it using special programs. Good luck!
In our age, you can’t go anywhere without a flash drive, especially if you are an office worker. Everyone has at least one memory card and it’s not surprising that it’s lying around in your pocket along with other small items. And just imagine, you threw your favorite jeans into the wash, but didn’t check the pockets, washing along with them a flash drive, inside of which there was “a year of painstaking work” in the form of text documents, images, videos. There is something to be upset about! The first thought is how to recover data from a memory card, at least partially, but is it worth falling into despair ahead of time? Let's sort it out in order.
subjected to shock loading. Therefore, the first thing you should do is disassemble its case (we make an exception for waterproof drives with a non-separable case). Under no circumstances try to connect a memory card to test it, it is dangerous!
Even if you own a computer at the level of a novice user, you can try to recover the data that was stored on a flash drive yourself. To do this, you will have to download special software, run the appropriate programs and save the files to your computer’s hard drive.
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