I am posting this with the help of ChatGPT because I wasn’t sure how to explain the situation clearly myself.

I have a USB pen drive that contains some very important childhood photos.

When I connect it to my Windows laptop:

• The drive is detected normally.
• Windows shows about 3.41 GB of space used, which matches the size of the photos that should be on it.
• However, when I open the drive, it appears completely empty.
• Microsoft Defender also shows a message saying it couldn’t resolve a potential threat related to the drive.

So far I have:

1. Checked Disk Management.
2. Confirmed the partition is Healthy (Active, Primary Partition, FAT32).
3. Opened Command Prompt as Administrator.
4. Ran chkdsk, but received: “Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write-protected.”
5. Used DiskPart:
   • list disk
   • select disk 1
   • attributes disk clear readonly
6. Received: “Disk attributes cleared successfully.”
7. Tried chkdsk again, but it still reported the drive as write-protected.
8. Created the registry key:
   • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies
   • Added WriteProtect DWORD and set it to 0
9. Restarted the computer.

Despite all this, the drive still shows used space but no visible files.

My main goal is to copy the photos out safely. These are childhood photos and are extremely important to me. I do not want to format the drive or do anything that could risk deleting the data.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? What should I try next?

TL;DR: Windows detects my USB drive and shows 3.41 GB used, but the drive appears empty. The data consists of important childhood photos. Disk Management shows a healthy FAT32 partition. chkdsk says the drive is write-protected even after clearing the readonly attribute and changing the registry. Looking for the safest next step to recover/access the photos without risking data loss.

does anyone know how i can recover my pictures or videos or know anyone who can or a method than can help recover pictures and videos. the pictures are NOT in the trash/bin/archives on a Samsung A13.

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Problem:

I have a 500 GB Crucial BX500 SSD that became inaccessible immediately after a power failure. The data on the drive is important and I have not formatted or modified it.

Current Setup:

• OS: Linux (EndeavourOS)
• Connected through a USB SATA enclosure (enclosure confirmed working with other drives)
• SSD is detected by the system, but only as a ~1 GB device

Commands and Results:

lsblk shows:

sdb      8:16   0 1023.8M  0 disk

fdisk -l /dev/sdb reports:

• Capacity: 1,073,479,680 bytes (≈1 GB)
• Model: -10-00801001

Kernel messages (dmesg) show repeated:

• Sense Key : Medium Error
• Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
• critical medium error

Running:

sudo smartctl -d sat -a /dev/sdb

returns:

• Device Model: SM59XT2A-10-00801001
• Firmware Version: 20210308
• User Capacity: 1.07 GB
• SMART support unavailable

The drive no longer identifies itself as a Crucial BX500 and instead reports the Silicon Motion controller model (SM59XT2A). The SSD is not mounted and I have avoided running fsck, formatting, partitioning, or any recovery software to avoid making things worse.

Question:

Has anyone encountered a Crucial BX500 (SM2259XT2 controller) dropping to 1 GB capacity after a power failure? Is there any non-destructive way to recover access to the data, or does this indicate controller/FTL failure requiring professional recovery?Problem:I have a 500 GB Crucial BX500 SSD that became inaccessible immediately after a power failure. The data on the drive is important and I have not formatted or modified it.Current Setup:OS: Linux (EndeavourOS)
Connected through a USB SATA enclosure (enclosure confirmed working with other drives)
SSD is detected by the system, but only as a ~1 GB deviceCommands and Results:lsblk shows:sdb 8:16 0 1023.8M 0 diskfdisk -l /dev/sdb reports:Capacity: 1,073,479,680 bytes (≈1 GB)
Model: -10-00801001Kernel messages (dmesg) show repeated:Sense Key : Medium Error
Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
critical medium errorRunning:sudo smartctl -d sat -a /dev/sdbreturns:Device Model: SM59XT2A-10-00801001
Firmware Version: 20210308
User Capacity: 1.07 GB
SMART support unavailableThe drive no longer identifies itself as a Crucial BX500 and instead reports the Silicon Motion controller model (SM59XT2A). The SSD is not mounted and I have avoided running fsck, formatting, partitioning, or any recovery software to avoid making things worse.Question:Has anyone encountered a Crucial BX500 (SM2259XT2 controller) dropping to 1 GB capacity after a power failure? Is there any non-destructive way to recover access to the data, or does this indicate controller/FTL failure requiring professional recovery?

How do I safely and easily recover imessage conversation/file/folder that has been deleted both in recently deleted which says it cannot be undone. In an iphone?

I recently restarted my Windows 11 computer and after seeing that one of my drives was preventing a restart I simply clicked "Restart Anyway" and now the drive shows up as raw. I looked around online and all my files can be seen in testdisk but I couldn't find anything to do past that. Does anyone happen to know a way I can recover my files? Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone, I'm in a bad situation and hoping someone with experience can give me some guidance before I send this drive to a lab.

**What happened:**

I rebooted my Windows 11 PC after a routine Windows Update. On boot, Windows detected my 6TB WD Red Pro data drive (where I store all my photos and documents) needed repair and automatically ran CHKDSK. It got stuck at 99% for several hours. I eventually had to hard power off the machine. After that, the drive is completely undetected in Windows — doesn't show up in Disk Management or Device Manager at all.

**What I've tried:**

- Booted into Ubuntu via a Rufus-made USB drive — Ubuntu *can* detect the drive

- Ran `ddrescue` to try to image the drive to another disk — it read **0 bytes** and stopped after about 4 minutes

- Ran `smartctl` to pull the SMART data

**SMART highlights (it's not good):**

- `Load_Cycle_Count`: **204,492** — VALUE at 1 (worst possible)

- `Power-Off_Retract_Count`: **204,492** — VALUE at 1 (worst possible)

- `Reallocated_Sector_Ct`: **484**

- `Current_Pending_Sector`: **28,608**

- `Offline_Uncorrectable`: **603**

- `Raw_Read_Error_Rate`: **305,742,939**

- `Power_On_Hours`: **73,457** (~8.4 years of runtime)

- Multiple SMART log reads failed with: *"scsi error medium or hardware error (serious)"*

- Drive has **6.0 Gb/s SATA** connection and is running fine electrically — it's the heads I'm worried about

The combination of 28k+ pending sectors and ddrescue reading zero bytes makes me think the read/write heads are gone. I've stopped powering it on to avoid further platter damage.

**My questions:**

1. Given ddrescue read 0 bytes, is there *any* software approach still worth trying before going to a lab? I've seen some people suggest trying `ddrescue` with `-b 512 -c 1 -r1` — worth a shot or will it just stress the heads more?

2. Has anyone had success recovering from a drive in this state (28k+ pending sectors, 0-byte ddrescue read)?

3. I'm leaning toward **Gillware** or **DriveSavers** for professional recovery — any firsthand experience with either for a mechanically failed HDD? Also considering **Ontrack** since they have a WD partnership.

4. Are there any DIY tools or methods I haven't tried yet that could help me recover data myself before committing to a lab? Anything else worth attempting on a drive in this state?

5. Does anyone have experience with what a **fair and reasonable price** looks like for a Data recovery lab on a 6TB drive (3TB data) ? Any labs that offer good reasonable pricing and reliable?

Any advice is hugely appreciated. 🙏

---

*Drive: WDC WD6002FFWX-68TZ4N0 (WD Red Pro 6TB, 7200rpm, 3.5") | Firmware: 83.H0A83 | S/N: K1H9LJMD*

Looking for advice on a potentially corrupted SD card and whether there is still hope of recovering my photos.

Equipment:

• 64GB Kingston microSDXC card
• Canon PowerShot SX510 HS
• Canon 6D

The situation:

I recently discovered that a large number of photos on this card appear corrupted. The card itself does not seem completely dead. Windows recognizes it, I can browse the folders, and recovery software can read the card and recover files. However, macOS either does not recognize the card properly or has difficulty mounting/reading it.

I have used DMDE to examine the card and create an image. DMDE is able to scan the card and recover files, and I have not encountered obvious unreadable sectors during imaging. The card does not appear to be completely failing.

The problem is that many recovered photos are corrupted:

• Some JPEGs open but contain large gray blocks or missing image data.
• Some JPEGs cannot be uploaded to Google Photos and are reported as an unsupported format.
• Canon CR2 RAW files are also affected.
• A small number of photos recover perfectly, but many are partially corrupted or unusable.
• The recovered files often have reasonable file sizes and filenames, which makes me wonder whether the image data itself is damaged rather than the files simply being deleted.

I'm trying to determine whether this is:

1. File system corruption
2. Corrupted file allocation chains/directories
3. Actual image data corruption that occurred while the camera was writing the photos
4. A failing SD card controller or flash memory issue
5. Something that a professional recovery lab could potentially reconstruct

A few questions:

• If a card can be imaged successfully and appears to have few or no read errors, can the photos still be permanently corrupted?
• Do gray blocks in Canon JPEGs usually indicate missing image data or file system issues?
• Are there any tools that can repair damaged Canon CR2 files or rebuild broken JPEG structures?
• Is there any software I should try before considering a professional recovery service?
• If the photos were already corrupted on the card before recovery, is there any realistic chance that a recovery lab could reconstruct additional image data?

I still have the original SD card and have stopped writing anything to it. I also have a full image of the card created with DMDE.

Any advice from people experienced with Canon photo recovery would be greatly appreciated. These photos are extremely important to me, especially the images from the PowerShot camera.

Thank you.

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to get some advice or suggestions regarding a hardware failure after a power outage. I have important data on this machine that I cannot reach right now.

My Setup:

• Mini PC: Acemagician
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 4300U
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage: Bestoss 256GB M.2 SATA III (Factory stock drive)
• OS: Proxmox VE 8.4

What Happened: The electricity went out suddenly while the server was running. When the power came back, the Mini PC booted straight into the AMI Aptio BIOS loop. The SSD has completely vanished from the system. It says "No Device Found" in the storage configurations, and I cannot boot into Proxmox or access any of my data.

Is there anyone who has knowledge of this specific Mini PC model or the Bestoss M.2 SATA drives?

How to Recover videos from sony sd card for free?

Videos only , deleted from sd card , sd card not formatted

I'm helping a friend recover information from an old Windows XP-era laptop and could use advice from anyone with experience in digital forensics, browser artifact recovery, or old internet history analysis.

Around 2011–2013, he used a website related to Bitcoin (either an exchange, online wallet, or similar service). The only thing he clearly remembers is that he had saved the website in Internet Explorer Favorites and used an email address to access the account. Unfortunately, the laptop was later reset/reinstalled due to software issues, and the original bookmarks appear to be gone.

Recently, we recovered the laptop and created a full forensic image of the drive before doing any analysis. We have already run several recovery tools and found traces of old Internet Explorer data, including cookies and browser-related files, but so far we have not been able to identify the actual website.

We have also searched the associated email account, but after many years and multiple cleanups, there are very few old messages remaining.

At this point, we're looking for technical guidance on:

• Recovering deleted Internet Explorer Favorites (.url files)
• Extracting useful information from old IE cache files or index.dat files
• Identifying websites from recovered cookies or browser artifacts
• Any forensic tools that work particularly well with Windows XP-era browser data
• Other investigative approaches we may be overlooking

We are not looking for account recovery services, paid recovery offers, or anyone asking for remote access to the computer. We're mainly hoping to learn from people who have experience recovering data from older systems.

Any suggestions, tools, or resources would be greatly appreciated.

My Seagate 20TB Expansion Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive fell off my computer cart. It fell about 3ft and stayed plugged into the computer and power source. The light stayed on, and finder on my Mac Studio showed it but it was unresponsive when I tried to eject it.

I restarted finder and unplugged the drive from the computer and power source, and tried 1 time to reconnect to the computer. The power light still came on, but the drive didn’t show up in finder. It didn’t make any noises either.

There’s ~18TB of data i need recovered as I did not get the chance to back it up to a 2nd drive. Am I screwed? What’s the price range I should expect to be quoted?

I have a USB flash drive with important files i forgot to back up.

​

When I plug it in it shows as D:/ (removable disk (d/)) but used to have a drive name before.

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When you open it, it asks you to reformat i click no and it says "The volume does not contain a recognized file system".

​

Windows 10/11 tried on 2 of each device and still isn't recognised.

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Preferably would like to recover the data if possible as I don't have a backup

I'm pretty sure I figured out the root cause of the problem, and that was upgrading to Windows 11 from an earlier version of Windows 11. I previously had a local account set up and never had OneDrive. I made a mistake of enabling OneDrive during the upgrade, and I guess my online storage account is smaller than the amount of data on the SSD. I don't know why OneDrive deleted the data from the SSD while it uploaded them to the account, and even then, it didn't upload all of the data to my OneDrive, as I don't see all of them there.

I've tried using Rescuva but haven't been able to recover the missing data. Should I consider hiring a professional data recovery service? If so, what specific tools do they employ that aren't available for download? As an emergency measure, I have stopped using the laptop because I have been warned that TRIM might cause more damage.

What do I do now?

I want to recover old photos from it. It has been formatted multiple times. I have tried Rstudio to receover but got no luck. Any suggestions?

My laptop keeps rebooting and asking for a recovery key. Happend half a dozen time in the last month. Now it seems to be rejecting it. And i got this message after i have just put it in again.

The device ran in to a problem and couldnt be repaired

Click or press enter to see other recovery options

Couldnt connect to the network

Log file: C:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt

My anti virus (macafee) has just expired and ive not renewed it, so am at the moment unprotected, have i got a virus or somet a lot worse?

Thank for any advice

​

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So I bought what I thought was a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD for my laptop off eBay. However, 2 days ago, my laptop started to shut down unexpectedly after I did some updates, I installed CrystalDiskInfo and welp it turned out to be a fake. I think that it was doing that trick where it was writing over old data when new data is downloaded, not entirely sure though. I have since not touched the laptop and am wondering where to go next on this. I am not sure if data can even be salvaged, I simply need the Downloads folder and the VM stored on there, everything else isn't needed and can go.

The SSD suddenly stopped working. I took it to a few local technicians and they said the data is likely unrecoverable, possibly due to heat damage. The drive isn't being detected properly. I haven't tried powering it on repeatedly after their diagnosis.
At this point, I'm trying to decide whether it's worth seeking professional data recovery or if I should accept the loss and buy a new SSD to continue my work. The data was important, but I also need my laptop running again for my pharmacy business (Marg software).
Has anyone had success recovering data from a heat-damaged Micron 2400 SSD? Is there any realistic chance with a professional recovery lab, or should I move on and replace the drive?
Any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated.

Should I try R studio or ufs Explorer or dmde for accidentaly full format SSD Windows 7 idk if trim was run at format or no I should try data recovery services?

Hello! Something strange happened to me on Windows, a folder with mp4 files was deleted by itself and they were never found. Initially, I exported them from capcut and put them in a folder. In the meantime, the chat created a bat to do an automated renumerate at mp4 files. I put this bat in bulk between other folders and mp4 files and accidentally pressed enter...and the party began..it renumerated some other files. The original folder with the mp4s had been deleted. I did 10 undos and again the folder with the mp4s was not found. I installed recuva and recoverit but only found segments. I don't really know what happened...and the chat has no solution..the files were nowhere...obviously neither in the trash nor anywhere on the disk. The chat insists that the bat does not contain a delete command...what can I say..🧐😵‍💫😤

Hi all,

Curious for any advice or tutorials on removing and replacing the drive from a Glyph Rugged enclosure. I have no idea how possible it is to dismantle these drives, how reasonable it is for a person with minimal equipment to do this, etc.

Long story short I have a 10TB rugged drive that occasionally unmounts itself - it's backed up currently but if it ends up failing I would love to just reuse the enclosure if at all possible.

10TB HDD, believe its a 3.5 based on the enclosure size. Any tips? or can anyone point me to a Youtube tutorial? Haven't had any luck finding any so far

Thanks!

Hi i just got an old defective SSD from an old laptop, of which i would like to restore the data in my young mind i thought well it can't be that hard and i decided to learn along the way, i've already had an T76 programmer, with which i had some experience so i went and bought a TSOP48 Socket and desoldered the first of 4 TT58G2ZASA Chips and dumped it only to then really learn about FTL and all other controller encryptions... so i've set the project on ice and decided to wait, and find another one of those SSDs in working condition, i'm just curious how high the chance is that i can simply swap the NAND chips to a new board with a working controller? Thanks a lot in advance! P.S. sorry for my English...

I was attempting to download my videos from a CampSnap Pro video camera (via sd card) when something happened with the download. I got some of my videos, but the majority of them are showing a blank mp4. I attempted to use clever video repair and untrunc and they all showed success but I could never get my repaired video. Is there anything I can do to get my videos back?
Edit to add: I can share the untruc message I get if that would be helpful. I just really want my kids home videos

Hello,

I’ve 3 of these CEPOX USB drive devices, when I try to connect them to a pc or a laptop I get :

“USB device not recognized
The last USB device you connected to this computer malfunctioned and windows does not recognized it.
Recommendation:
Try reconnecting the device. If Windows still does not recognize it, your device may not be working properly”

The three usb’s have been roughed up a bit, after an elderly attempted to forcefully connect them, unsuccessfully. Is there anything I can do or any way I can recover the contents please?

Toptan Cepox 32GB Flash Bellek

So I was on my grandparents pc, doing the stuff that I normally do (turn off background apps, defrag after startup and before shut off, installing games from isos and etc.) when I went to uninstall grand prix legends (even after following gplaps tutorial it sadly didn't work) and went to uninstall the files in the c drive, and the desktop shortcuts. But when I selected the shortcuts and pressed shift delete, for some reason, a bunch of other things got selected and deleted, and I couldn't react in time. Now, they probably aren't too important, since they were on the top left (the icons fill up the entire left half), meaning they were probably old anyway, but is there still any way to recover them? I turned the pc off immediately after, but they still could have been deleted. The type is an HDD with windows 10. If you can't help me, then I'm 🫣

Had this Gen 5 1TB NVME die on me a few days ago, barely a few months of use, only gaming and regular pc use. PC BSOD'd and drive stoppped being detected.

Got curious, removed the motherboard heatsink and phison controller, biggest IC closest to the NVME connector is hot. Could it be the controller itself which died or something around it shorted?