Probably everybody has problems with data recovery. One day I had this problems too.

I have used to carry a lot of important documents on USB flash stick. First, it's very convenient to have them ready in my pocket whether I am in the office or at home, I always know that they are with me. Second, I being aware of risk of failure associated with hard drives I somehow was sure that USB flash drives are not prone to any damage due to the absence of moving

parts. You can shake it, you can drop it - nothing will happen to the bytes on the stick - great!

So, I was happy and confident that nothing threatens to my beloved USB stick - until today. I still don't know exactly what was the cause, but when I inserted the stick into my PC, a message popped up telling me that there's some inconsistence with the disk and asking to check it. I know, sometimes when I remove the stick without proper "safe removal" procedure Windows will complain about it the next time I use it, it will scan it to verify and report that everything is OK.

It happened not a once in the past, so I kind of got used to it and did not pay the proper attention to the Windows message this time - what's the hack - go check it up - I thought, pressing the confirmation button. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that a checkbox "Automatically fix the errors" was set on, but it was too late. In mere seconds Windows happily reported that drive was fixed, I looked at it and - or, no! All the files are gone - it was clean and problem free (from Windows point of view of course).

Don't panic - I told myself, there have to be a solution, my data must be there - if not files as such but at least their dead bodies. I just need to find the way to get them back to life. After some googling I found out that there is software built exactly for such cases - allowing to search for deleted or corrupted files and get them back.

I selected one of such software, called Active@ File Recovery. I liked the fact that it is able to search by templates for the traces of deleted files even if the whole file system is gone. It looked like to be my case. Most of my documents were Excel spreadsheets and the fact that Active@ File Recovery is familiar with XLS format as well as with many more, reassured me. So, I got the software and started to resurrect my poor stick.

My efforts were not in vain. After a quick scan the program built a tree of the file structure as it was before the accident. At a glimpse I knew I am saved. The most important files were presented. I clicked Restore and got them copied to the PC. Excel opened them without a hesitation. Now I browsed the rest of the disk more thorough and tried to restore whatever left.

Honestly, not all my files could be restored, which is understandable since Windows did wrote quite a bit to the stick while "fixing" it. But my ass was saved anyway, thanks to this wonderful program.

So is my story and advice - never have all important data in one place without having a copy and get File Recovery software handy in case you need it.