All of the sudden, after plugging in my pendrive, I notice that the folder names are unreadable (symbols are like squares and such).
Does anyone came across this ? Why does it happen ? If the files can't be renamed/copied, is there any other way of retrieving the data ?
The most common cause is when the start of the memory chip is overwritten with non related data. This can overwrite the FAT, and directories.
It is normally caused by unplugging before the disk structure is fully updated, ie whilst the PC is still writing to it.
Typically normal data recovery solutions will recover the majority of files, though as with all FAT disks, previously fragmented files may require special attention to join the fragments together.
Another question I plug a pendrive in PC1 (Win Vista) and PC2 (Win XP). After I click on "Remove hardware…."
*On PC1, the led on the pendrive continues to be turned on.
*But on PC2, the led turns off.
This means that the OS unloads the drivers of the pendrive in a different way, and that there's energy on going through the drive, but does it also mean that XP is better than Vista/7 ?
Another question I plug a pendrive in PC1 (Win Vista) and PC2 (Win XP). After I click on "Remove hardware…."
*On PC1, the led on the pendrive continues to be turned on.
*But on PC2, the led turns off.This means that the OS unloads the drivers of the pendrive in a different way, and that there's energy on going through the drive, but does it also mean that XP is better than Vista/7 ?
This doesn't necessarily mean that XP is better than Vista or 7. 7 is a completely different entity from vista. I suggest trying the Win 7 realease candidate and see what happens with that. I know that XP and Vista pull resources in a sequential processing order. this means that the flash drive may simply need time to catch up with the rest of the system. depending on the speed of the system the flash drive is plugged into you may need to wait up to 5 minutes to let the processes catch up. The processing works in a priority system so the flash drive will take a backseat to any other important system task. 7 revamped this and is clustering processes that will hopefully be able to focus on multiple things instead of one process at a time (that is the theory). furthermore 7 has a much larger driver database so hopefully that will work more efficiently than vista or XP. I'd give that a shot just for the sake of trying the new OS for functionality purposes.