problems with password-protected pen drive

A

AlbertX

New Member
Hi

Few years ago I boutht Imation 4GB pendrive flash memory. It has description as follows: HMDS-04GL, E-D900-03-3213. The memory was originally protected with a password. For a few yers everything worked well. When I was plugging the memory into my USB port, windows explorer could only recognize a password application (as I remember it was called "Lock"). It didn't even give the information about a disc space. After I ran the application and typed a password, windows could see the disc space and the files stored on it.

Some time ago I was working with Open Office and saving my files straight to my Imation flash memory (the memory was "opened" and the password was entered). The files saved on the memory but outside of the password protected area (despite the fact that there was no "public" area on the disc). For a few days after plugging the memory and before entering a password windows could see both: lock application and a few new open office files. After entering a password new open office files disappeared and I could see the content of the password protected area. That's how it worked for few days.

Last week I plugged my flash memory and realized that password application disappeared. Only these few new open office files were visible, but I couldn't even open it (I got message that the files are corrupted). Despite this Windows can see the total space, and free space of the memory.

I tried to restore my "Lock" application. I found some later versions of it (for ex. ImationLock v. 232) but after running it I get message: "Please insert the device or run this utility as privileged user". When the message apeear the flash memory is plugged and I am logged as an administrator. I found somewhere that I should remove my flash memory from USB and plug it again after this message appears but it didn't work. I tried to copy this ImationLock programme into my flash memory and run it straight from there but with the same result.

I also tried Smart Data Recovery and hoped that it will find my missing password programme. But it only found a few hundreds of "other files" (all with "tmp" extension).

Now, my question is if you know how to restore my files? (of course, I remember the password).

My operating system is Windows 7.

Thanks for your help.
 
Some lock programs are not compatible with Windows 7, especially 64bits version. try to use it in a xp computer to see if you can restore those files.
Cheers.
 
Did you use the SAFE REMOVE HARDWARE on that flash memory before unplugging it every time?
If no,you should have.

Anyway try to check the data integrity on that flash memory.Plug it in and then take a look at what drive letter it has.For example "Z:".And then open CMD and in it type the following command:

chkdsk.exe Z: /F /R /X /V

Press ENTER...
Wait for the process to finish.
When the process is finished,go into that flash memory and try to use your old password program again (if it will be there of course) to enter the password and then save your password protected files (if any).
Also save your non password protected files too (if any).


Report back with the results.




Cheers!
 
S.T.A.R.S. said:
Did you use the SAFE REMOVE HARDWARE on that flash memory before unplugging it every time?
If no,you should have.

Anyway try to check the data integrity on that flash memory.Plug it in and then take a look at what drive letter it has.For example "Z:".And then open CMD and in it type the following command:

chkdsk.exe Z: /F /R /X /V

Press ENTER...
Wait for the process to finish.

Report back with the results.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Well, I didn't use safe remove before. But I will in a future :)

I checked flash memory drive letter, ran cmd.exe, typed your command and received following answer (it's my translation to english):

"The type of files system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drive."

paulcheung said:
Some lock programs are not compatible with Windows 7, especially 64bits version. try to use it in a xp computer to see if you can restore those files.
Cheers!
Click to expand...

Ok, when I find some xp computer I will try it.

There is one more information I'd like to add (I don't know if it may be important). Everytime (even when it worked fine) when I was plugging that flash memory I got a message from Windows that files here may be damaged and windows suggests to fix it. I was always refusing that proposal. Today morning I typed "yes", windows started scanning it (I think that something like "automatically fix damaged files" was marked) and after few seconds scanning application hanged. When I plugged in the flash memory again, these few open office files which were still visible disappeared. Now windows explorer doesn't see any files there.

Thanks for your help.
 
Try to access the contents (data) of that flash drive through Linux Ubuntu for example to see if it will find any data.

By the way when flash drives or hard drives turn to RAW all of a sudden,that usually means that your device is dying and is almost dead so your data might be gone.So try Linux immediately and save any possible data that can be saved (if it's not too late already).

The drive will show a RAW if that partition is corrupt.This can occur if the USB flash drive was removed while it was writing data to the drive at the time it was removed.That is why I told you that you ALWAYS need to use the SAFE REMOVE HARDWARE option.

You should ALWAYS have backups of important data.ALWAYS!
 
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S.T.A.R.S. said:
Try to access the contents (data) of that flash drive through Linux Ubuntu for example to see if it will find any data.
Click to expand...

At the moment I don't have access to any computer with linux and don't want to install it on my PC just to check it (in fact I've never worked with linux). Is it possible to check it in different way? (is there something like ubuntu emulator for Windows? ;) )

Thanks
 
Burn ubuntu to a disk, boot to the disk and choose try ubuntu. It will run from the disk with no changes to your computer at all.
 
AlbertX said:
At the moment I don't have access to any computer with linux and don't want to install it on my PC just to check it (in fact I've never worked with linux). Is it possible to check it in different way? (is there something like ubuntu emulator for Windows? ;) )

Thanks
Click to expand...

You don't need to install anything.Just do what wolfeking told you.
 
Well.. I didn't suspect that using Linux may be so easy. :)

I did what you said and checked my flash memory. I'll describe everything I saw (don't know which informations may be useful).

On the memory Ubuntu found 6.142 files with total size of 508,3 MB. All of the files has CHK extensions and their names goes from FILE0000.CHK to FILE6141.CHK. It didn't see any different files.

The files has quite special structure. 5.004 files has the size of 65,6 kB each, then few hundreds: 131,1 kB, few hundreds: 196,6 kB, and some: 261,1 kB, 327,7 kB, 393,2 kB. There are also few files bigger than 393,2 kB. I suspect that this is because the files are encrypted by locking programme.

It also shows that there are 2,4 GB of free space on the memory and that total capacity is 2,9 GB (while it's 4 GB pen drive).

I created new directory on my hard disc, marked all the files on flash memory and started to copy it. While copying many times I got the message: "Error while copying 'FILE NAME'" When clicked "show more details" --> "Error splicing file. Input/output error."

Finally, when copying process finished, in my target directory on hard disc there is the same number of files (6.142) but their total size is a little bit different (502,3 MB) (does it mean that only 6 mb were lost?). I wonder if these files will be visible under Windows.

Is there still a chance to recover my data ?

PS: I tried to run ImationLock v. 232 under XP but the message is the same.
 
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