Simple File Recovery From Flash Memory Cards
File recovery software has made it possible to retrieve lost and deleted documents from disks, hard drives and other storage media. This post looks at how freeware can be used to recover lost files from flash cards/memory.
Finding files on flash memory is made very easy due to the fact that any file recovery tool that supports FAT-32 will work on flash. This file system format is used by Windows so tools are widely available to support it. Freeware options like Smart Recover or Recuva should be an essential part of your computer maintenance software kit along with anti-virus programs and disk defragmentation tools.
The recovery process itself is straight forward:
- Download and install the recovery application (examples above) onto a PC.
- Connect the flash card/memory to this computer (some PCs have specific readers for the cards).
- Start up the recovery software
- When prompted for a drive to scan, select the flash cards directory.
- The applications will check the memory for signs of lost files and present a list of documents back to you.
- Pick the files you want and copy them onto the PC.
This process will work best straight after deleting files. Deleted files are not removed from memory; only their index showing which directory to put them in is removed. However, in time the memory clusters of deleted files will be overwritten with newly saved files.
Formatting the flash card generally only removes the index too. It is only if you use a data cleaning/wiping stage when formatting does the formatter attempt to repeatedly write nonsense information to memory clusters (in which case, your files are gone for good).
The process of file recovery is simple enough to complete but may not fully succeed at finding all your files. Safeguard against this possibility by keeping duplicates of all flash card files and data.
