Flash Drive problem

[Boggess Rod]

>------------------------------
>
>On 01/04/2011 12:27 PM, Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
>> Den 2011-01-04 21:10:41 skrev Patton Echols <p.echols at comcast.net>:
>>
>>> I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I
>>> recover files from the card.  When a usb card reader is plugged, no
>>> reaction.  I've looked at the log viewer and there are no messages
in
>>> any log when the card reader is plugged in w/o card (I think that is
>>> normal) and no messages in any log when the card is plugged in -
>>> pretty abnormal I think.
>>>
>>> I have tested the reader with another card.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?
>>>
<Remainder elided.>

I've done this several times. I'd be very curious to see what you
ultimately find, but I have to warn you that prospects are not good. The
CF can die in two different ways. In one, a read/writable cell fails
making the card unusable, but readable. This is equivalent to when a
hard drive has a head crash from a power failure and a part of the
magnetic media begins to lift off of the substrate. The card remains
readable, but the file is corrupted because of missing sectors. In the
case of the CF, though, the card is useless, but you can use Linux to
copy the raw bytes, ignoring unreadable blocks. (Alternatively, there
are tools out there that will do all the heavy lifting.)

Sometimes, however, the electronic controller circuitry is fried. This
is akin to the head controller failing on a hard drive. When this
happens, you can't even mount the card. I've never been able to recover
anything in this case. Even a hard drive platter can be physically moved
to another spindle, but a CF is just dead. If you figure out a way to
recover something, please let me know.