Any free recovery programs that actually work?

[Rammsteinmad]

One of my USB sticks has been corrupted, or whatever happens when it needs to be reformatted.

Thankfully it's not too important, but it'll certainly make my life easier if I can get the data back. So, anyone know of any good programs?

I've tried a few which disguise themselves as 'freeware' etc, but as soon as it comes down to saving the files, it says you need the full version! :mad:

[Jura]

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

It was a long time ago when I used it so I don't really remember how to use it but it worked. If you've used the usb since, then it might be hard to recover some files since they may have been over-written with new stuff.

[Rammsteinmad]

No I haven't reformatted it yet, hoping to recover these files so I don't have to write them out again (just some word documents and guitar pro files). Thanks for the link, will give it a shot in a minute.

[Jura]

I didn't mention anything about reformatting. Once you fill up a usb drive or hard drive the data will always be there until you get new data which will over-write old data that's there. You can still recover data after reformatting but if you've downloaded stuff recently or put stuff on a drive then more and more old data will not be recoverable. So if you ever plan on selling a drive with sensitive information, to be safe, besides formatting and using secure deleting programs you can just copy a stupid movie until the drive fills up and old data should be over-written.