Flash cards have made it very easy to store volumes of internet data that would have formerly fitted on a huge number of floppy disks. The downside though is when the flash device is deleted or formatted then your data recovery process has more files to find. This article examines how file recovery software is capable of finding your files and indicates some of the nuances of flash memory.

The big a valuable thing about flash based devices is that they use exactly the same FAT 32 file system common to many internal hard disk drives and other varieties of external storage devices. This means they must have a file allocation table (FAT), master boot record plus a boot sector.

It includes that any data recovery tool capable of finding files over a hard drive will continue to work on finding documents in your flash card when attached to your computer.

Flash Data recovery software for FAT-32 systems are very prevalent these days with many commercial and freeware options (e.g. CG Security & PC Inspector both have free tools).

They all work with the same manner by reading the FAT to distinguish files (even deleted ones are indexed inside FAT) and scanning the flash memory for signs of information clusters (how each file is stored). The commercial tools will possess a better chance of finding formatted data by analyzing the information clusters and reassembling the recognizable documents you use.

One thing to be aware of is the lifespan of flash memory. Each memory switch will fail following a certain variety of read/write commands. For regular users, this may take decades to occur. But if you make use of the flash card for running software (including and operating-system) then the memory will fail quicker, so be warned, that file recovery will not be possible once this mechanical failure occurs.

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