Staying calm makes it easier to see what your options are, and less likely to make a mistake that will lead to really losing your files.Ģ. It’s like trying to get to an island across a damaged bridge: the island is still there, but you either have to repair the bridge or find another path to get to it. It’s actually very rare for a flash drive to wipe itself completely: what usually happens is that a corruption in the data erases the path a computer takes to find the files. It might feel like the end of the world, but even if your files aren’t showing up at all, that doesn’t mean they no longer exist.
On the other hand, the good news is that there are actually more options than you might think for rescuing important data.ġ. The bad news is that once a flash drive has failed, there’s very little you can do for the flash drive itself. If you’ve been keeping important files on a flash drive without a backup, a flash drive failure can feel like a disaster.
The downside to relying on a flash drive to store your important files is that sometimes they fail. They’re small, they’re portable, and they’re relatively inexpensive plus, flash drives are equally compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux, so there’s no need for complicated partitioning when taking your files from place to place. It’s very easy to become reliant on a USB flash drive.
