Vista corrupted file on usb drive

[Bob]

I opened a .doc file on my Memorex 128 mb usb drive and got a message that
there was a problem. Vista Scandisk came up and asked to scan and fix the
usb drive and I clicked yes. It scanned usb drive and all the files were ok
except the .doc file that failed to open and a directory of pictures I
successfully copied before this. I only want the text off the .doc file and
I do not care about the pictures. It renamed the directory and the .doc
file a "square" symbol without the usual three-character extension like
..doc, .txt, etc. at the end of the filename. In any "open file" dialog
window to chose a file to open it shows up as a larger dot (not a period)
that I can click on.

I double click the former .doc file and it gives me a choice of what program
to use to open it. I chose MS word or any other choice and it does nothing.
I try to rename it or copy it or delete it and I get "the file name you
specified is not valid or too long" message. I right click and the
properties on the "details" tab it shows up as 292 kb. I open MS Word and
click to open file and I get "this file could not be found" but it showed up
in the open dialog box as a larger (not a period) dot again and I could see
it and click on it. I right click on it in the open dialog box and I get
"properties for this item not available". I use textextract 2.2 to get at
the text and I get "the filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is
incorrect."

Is there any way to get the text out of that file in my Memorex 128 mb usb
drive? Are there any utilities that will do it? It won't even let me
delete these two items. How do I delete these two items for safety?

Is the usb drive corrupted? I can move new items on and off of it no
problem.

Background info: I have a AMD 4400+ 64X2 4GB memory 320GB HD(way bigger than
I need) Acer computer (AM3100-U3201A) I purchased new February 2008 running
32-bit MS Vista Home Premium SP1 box. I check for MS auto updates very
frequently. I think it has onboard shared memory for video and sound. I
use Quest DSL 1.5mb service with modem direct to computer. No switches or
routers or wireless or any other networking hardware.

Thanks for the help.

Bob

 

[Richard Urban]

The file system on USB thumb drives can become corrupted, as can any file
system. If a file has been damaged due to a corrupted file system it can not
usually be saved/recovered in its entirety. You can try something like
Recuva from:
http://www.recuva.com/ to attempt to recover the file.

You can additionally go here:
http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=d7d1b162aff57cee7722cd9fb26e2f6d&showtopic=14299
to learn a bit on how to use Recuva

Did you know that the thumb drives can wear out? That is why you do not want
to actively "work" from the drive - as some people do. The drives have a
finite number of read/write cycles - after which the drive starts to
deteriorate. Save the file to the drive for storage. If you want to work
with the file, copy it over to your hard drive and work with it from there.
When you are done, copy the revised file back to the thumb drive and choose
to over write the older version.

 

[Wandering]

You probably can rename the file to somename.txt, and open it with note pad.
Then just copy out the text to where you want it. There are freeware
programs like Text Miner that can drag the text out of most files. It is not
a good idea to open and operate on files on flash drives. Drag them to your
desktop or other convenient place and work on them there, then after closing
the software, drag it back to the drive.

In general when you get that message about scan and fix, it is best to
simply close the box, remove your files from the drive, and then reformat
it. Then you can put back your data. It usually comes from removing the
drive when you have a file open in some software. For instance, even though
you close the file in Word, as long as Word is still open, it keeps a temp
file on the drive. If you pull it out after closing it but while Word is
still running, this corruption may occur. If you work on several different
files in Word, and in other programs for that matter, they will each have a
temp file open that won't close till you close Word. If they are on your
hard drive, no harm done, it just closes and deletes them.

Good luck.

 

[Bob]

Thanks for the sugetions. I will try it.
Bob