I have an SD card that I did not safely remove once and now every time I plug in my computer asks me " F:\ is not formatted do you want to format it now" After searching a bit I found this amazing software called photo rec that let me recover everything form the card.. Just thought I'd share this cos I found this extremely useful!!

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

2/20/2011 12:22:58 AM

I prefer Recuva

2/20/2011 12:59:43 AM

I have another problem.. I have an old 80 GB 2.5 inch IDE based external HDD.. my gf connected to her laptop (running Vista).. it froze her laptop so she plugged it out.. after that whenever I plug it in the light stays on (as though its being read) and I'm unable to access it.. I can see it in My Computer but when I click on it, my system freezes.. I even tried it through Linux(Ubuntu) when I click on teh drive it says the drive cannot be mounted... even testdisk hangs when i connect this drive.. any ideas or suggestions?

2/20/2011 1:24:00 AM

open the case, disconnect the drive, and use a USB-IDE cable, just to make sure that the case isn't the problem

2/20/2011 1:58:48 AM

buy an ad

2/20/2011 6:06:26 AM

^^ tried that..

2/20/2011 9:19:45 AM

^You may try to buy a new controller card for the drive and install that, and if that doesn't work, prepare to pay $texas to a data-recovery service with no guarantee that you'll recover anything.

2/20/2011 2:52:22 PM

^yup tried a new ide to usb controller.. it shows up in my computer but when I click on it it says device is not ready.. Recuva does not work, i get the same message device is not ready.. testdisk doesnt work either..

2/20/2011 4:52:05 PM

no, the actual hard drive controller board on the drive itself. Grab a working one off another hard drive and replace it. If there's any mechanical issues with the drive itself, like noise and clicking sounds of death, you can say good buy to it. Or you can try and play operation with the drive, only if you are brave enough.

2/20/2011 6:40:30 PM

^ is that easy to do? I searched a bit couldn't find a tutorial..

2/20/2011 8:47:06 PM

depends on the drive and how they have it wired. Probably not for the faint hearted. You can probably find a working drive on ebay for a few bucks and try if nothing else works.

2/20/2011 9:01:30 PM