How to recover cut, pasted and ctrl + z data, and how to fix partitions on thumb drive?

[chiagrace]

I'm using an ASUS laptop and was transferring some of my photos from my iPhone 6 to my 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Switch (drive E: ) . I was cutting and pasting (okay I know i should have copied instead but I was trying to clear up space in my phone) the photos into several folders with different titles. When I was done pasting some 200 photos and videos into a folder I labelled 'Uganda', I checked to make sure that they were safely in the thumb drive before moving on to collate another folder of photos. Somewhere along the lines I think i accidentally pressed ctrl + z an additional time, and when I wanted to re-visit the Uganda folder i realised it was missing!

I googled possible causes and it led me to believe that there had been some partitioning error of some sort? I tried to fix it with cmd but i think i made the problem worse - my entire thumbdrive is now in RAW format (i think it was initially NTFS?), nothing is readable and when I try to open it, it says "E:\ is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted". I definitely do not want to format it as there is a ton of data that I need to recover in the thumb drive in addition to the missing Uganda folder.

I've tried data recovery and partition fixing software (the free versions) but to no avail. Please help!!!! I've not backed my photos up and have been trying with so many different software (MiniTool, EaseUS, FoneLab, RecoverIt) for days now but most if not all of them require a license key for full recovery. Is there anything else I can do that won't require such a hefty fee? Thanks in advance for all your help.

 

[endeavor]

ctrl z on having just done a copy/cut/paste will delete the last transaction but will not put it in the RB either, and in the case of where you 'cut' then you removed it from the source as well (to be able to software recover it from there too) ..and so your options are more limited. That's right Do Not Format it or do any writes to it until you recover!

I feel for your situation. If I had your Cruzer in hand I could try and do it for you to see if the files could be recovered from it.

On these programs that you tried that are for $ ...the main question is, do they show your photo files listed there in some form?..but just won't let you recover them unless you buy ?

 

[chiagrace]

ctrl z on having just done a copy/cut/paste will delete the last transaction but will not put it in the RB either, and in the case of where you 'cut' then you removed it from the source as well (to be able to software recover it from there too) ..and so your options are more limited. That's right Do Not Format it or do any writes to it until you recover!

I feel for your situation. If I had your Cruzer in hand I could try and do it for you to see if the files could be recovered from it.

On these programs that you tried that are for $ ...the main question is, do they show your photo files listed there in some form?..but just won't let you recover them unless you buy ?

I was cutting from my iPhone and pasting to my thumb drive, and have since taken more photos with my phone... I guess that means the photos have been overwritten... Some of the recovery programs pick up some images from the day of the transfer but they can't be previewed, so I'm not sure if it's the photos I'm looking for or some other photos that I deleted and do not need.

I recently tried searching my laptop again for the photos after some Googling told me that i could try searching the PC for "kind:=picture". Surprisingly, this came up: (see attached pic). This photo was also transferred on the same day, but was not part of the "cut and paste" disaster. This one was successfully transferred over but can't be accessed at the moment because my thumb drive is in RAW format. It shows the path was to my thumb drive, but for some reason the other photos (i transferred hundreds to different folders) don't appear here after i've sorted to View By: Date Modified. Just wanted to know if this means anything? Clicking on it bring up a popup that says there is a problem with the shortcut and the .jpg photo is now a .jpg.lnk photo.... doesn't sound good. Thanks for your help. I wish I could pass you my Cruzer to see if there's anything that can be done too :-(

 

[endeavor]

That screenshot shows results in the Windows.old folder from one of your previous upgrades.
I don't see how that applies here, but you do have access to that folder.

Anyway at this point I don't think there is much of a chance to recover a 'cut' photo file from that SSD on your phone.
Your only hope probably is on that USB stick even though it's messed, however, the fact that you did a ctrl z on it right after the copy does not mean anything good for your recovery either.

There are so many programs available to do recovery for broken partitions, etc, on your USB stick
The greatest success for anyone of course is proper backups in the first place!
I've had many successes and some failures being able to recover data from spinners and ssd's on broken partitions. Over the years I've tried all the programs always being interested in the recovering subject. It's hard to suggest just one because each different one has a particular unique value, but the full versions of them are not free either; you might even get away with using a free version. I don't think any will be able to recover a ctrl z, it depends, but for you using ctrl z on your cut of files, where did the reverse put them or did it just unlinked them... it depends.

In no particular order, there is a program called Eassos PartitionGuru Pro and often I've seen them offer a one day free giveaway promotion of it; anyway within this program there are tools to do different kinds of recoveries from that USB stick that would be valuable to you. Sometimes the trial of softwares will let you at least see if the files are there and valid, and some will even let you recover a certain amount of data before paying $. There is also a program called EaseUS Partition Master which I've also had success with too recovering reformatted/broken partitions, and I see its Free version might even let you recover a limited amount of data for free. As I type this I'm thinking it's silly for me to mention any one of these programs because there are many of them out there, like Active@ UnDelete, and also R-Studio, and more, etc. I'm certainly not recommending one over the other and I have No Affiliations. None of this helps you though unless you have them to use and know how to use them since they require some familiarity. I should not even post my reply I guess and maybe delete it if I do, but as I said if I had your USB stick in my hand I could check to see.

You can't use your Windows Search like you did to find or fix these issues, at this point you need recovery software