I have the following technical problem that I could use some help with:

As I was copying data from one flash drive to another (my version of backing up that I do every year or so, I essentially copied 5-6GB of data in a few minutes, which I guess might have impacted the drive in some way), the computer suddenly stopped recognizing the source flash drive. Unfortunately only 40% of the data or so copied to the destination flash drive by the point that happened, and my previous backup only happened a year ago or so :-(

Now, when I plug that flash drive into a different computer it flashes and is recognizable in the Device Manager, but does not show up when I open Explorer/My Computer. When I open Computer Management --> Disc Management, it sees the Flash Drive, but shows it as "No Media". I am not interested in any option involving reformatting the flash drive, as the flash itself only has minimum value, while recovering the data is very important to me.

Scanning for hardware changes, updating the driver software, disabling/enabling the device and uninstalling the driver and then installing it again in Device Manager did not lead to any results either.

The FlashDrive itself is a 15GB Flash drive from MicroCenter, that I've been using for the past 4-5 years.

Thanks a lot for your help guys - I certainly appreciate it.

I don't think I have any good news for you. It sounds like the drive is corrupted which is why it can't be read. You can try googling around for hard drive recovery tools and see if you can find some to try but you may also want to try a data recovery company first before you do any more damage to the drive.

A lot will depend on how much you value that data. Hoping you have good luck, when you get it back remember the 3-2-1 rule; 3 copies, 2 media, 1 copy offsite.

The sad part is that it served me extremely well until I went for that ill-fated backup :-(

On a positive note, I do have the backup from about 7-8 months ago as well as about 40% of the latest folders in alphabetical order actually managed to successfully copy. So, I think I can afford to take my chances trying to fix/back up the drive myself (with your guys' help of course).

This is very good advice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_fl...ive#Criticisms