My new memory stick

[Don Basilio]

I had an excellent memory stick that got full up.  I bought a new one with 16GB capacity.

I always disconnect it before removing it, but things have still got corrupted.  I have run the security programme on it and it can find nothing wrong.

I can't open a couple of images, but I'm confused about a couple of folders I have created.  In the Windows Explorer window they now appear as files rather than file folders.  When I try to open them, I'm asked which programme I want to use.  I chose a  programme  for images, and then it says the specified file is not supported.

Any advice?

[Andy D]

It sounds like the file allocation table has got corrupted DonB - I've had that happen a couple of times. There's nothing simple that you can do about it. Just copy off any files on the stick which you don't hold elsewhere (although you should never have your sole copy of any file on a memory stick) and reformat it.

[Don Basilio]

I am furious and doubt I'll sleep much.  My laptop has died and I did not save much as I was told here not to trust memory sticks.

I do have on my memory stick a vital Word document with all my passwords - I didn't want to keep that on my permanent computer.  I accessed it earlier today here on Sancho's pc.  I tried opening it just now, to be told it is now corrupt and can't be opened.

Great.  Even if I get my laptop back, its memory may be wiped of recently created docs, and I will be unable to access various programmes as the password is no longer available. 

Gee thanks.

[John W]

My laptop has died and I did not save much as I was told here not to trust memory sticks.

Don, I got caught out like that last July and lost a few business/work things, yes annoyed with myself.

I use memory sticks to back up business stuff and music stuff is backed up Pc/laptop, and memory sticks are used mainly when I'm going to access files elsewhere but they are not my main back-up. An external hard-disk is the way to do it and you can get 250 Gb disks for 50 quid or less so having two off is not that expensive.

I usually quickly back up essential things on memory sticks but I do find backing up all new stsuff on the external hard disk such a chore that I don't do it often enough.

[Andy D]

You've been extremely unlucky DonB to have your laptop go and the memory stick fail at the same time.

However, the advice re don't rely on memory sticks still applies.

I did not save much as I was told here not to trust memory sticks.

but that doesn't mean don't back things up at all!! Get yourself an external hard drive, they're even cheaper than JW says, my most recent is a tiny 500GB USB drive which was just over £50.

All is not lost re your files on the laptop - unless it's a fault with the hard drive which has caused the failure, it should be easy enough for someone (tho probably not you) to retrieve what's on there. That's assuming the worst ie that the laptop can't be repaired.

Your password file might however be lost - too late now, but KEEP TWO COPIES (at least) of everything or certainly everything important.

John, the more hard drive space you have, the less of a chore backing up becomes. One way I back up files from a Windows system is to run Ubuntu off a USB stick and use that to copy everything from the Windows partition to an external hard drive - requires very little effort from me, I just leave it for an hour or so while the copying takes place. You can try something similar from within Windows but there are all sorts of files which Windows won't let you access - still, that's better than nothing.

[JSC]

I am furious and doubt I'll sleep much.  My laptop has died and I did not save much as I was told here not to trust memory sticks.

I do have on my memory stick a vital Word document with all my passwords - I didn't want to keep that on my permanent computer.  I accessed it earlier today here on Sancho's pc.  I tried opening it just now, to be told it is now corrupt and can't be opened.

Great.  Even if I get my laptop back, its memory may be wiped of recently created docs, and I will be unable to access various programmes as the password is no longer available. 

Gee thanks.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound unsympathetic but ... you're upset because you were told not to trust memory sticks, but the one file you did keep on a memory stick is corrupt.

What you were actually told is never to keep your only copy of a file on a memory stick.

You could use an external hard drive for backup, as Andy says, but if you don't have many files (which I would imagine you don't, in terms of volume), then you could save them to CD-R instead - you can probably fit most of your files, excluding your music, on a single CD. (I'd make two back-ups for safety.)

If you don't want to keep your passwords on your computer then I'd advise printing out the list, and maybe disguising it in some way.

[David Underdown]

Try opening the file with notepad, rather than Word.  It will compalin, and there will be some gobbledegook, which would be the formatting info for Word, but you'll probably be able to read the text.

Actually, what version of Word were you using, if the file has a docx extension, it's really a zip file, and if you change the extension to .zip you'll be able to fish around in the internals of the file, and again you sould have a good chance of getting the contents back.

[Don Basilio]

Hi!

I had a Lexar memory stick for the last year, and it was wonderful.  I eventually filled it up. I got a new one last November from a shop in Tottenham Court Road which made me a good price.  I'm a naive haggler.

Since then this memory stick has corrupted two folders I put on it, as said here, about three individual files and then this file I mention, which it opened OK last night.

I've had awful experiences with CD Roms - they don't seem to take all that much stuff, I can't add stuff to them once I have put stuff on them, and I had one where all the material disappeared into the ether.

I'll investigate an external drive.

Thanks for the comments.  Of course I meant to back up things When I Get A Round Tuit, but for the short term I didn't bother, as I risked the hard drive being OK. 

Fortunately I have an earlier version of the passwords doc on the earlier, reliable memory stick.

[Don Basilio]

David -

Notepad does open it, but I don't understand what it opened!

When I try to open it with Word (in which it was created) I am given the following unhelpful message:

To work around this issue, re-create or save the Excel workbook, Word document, or PowerPoint presentation in a file format other than Office Open XML. For example, save the file in the Excel 97-2003 Workbook (.xls), Word 97-2003 Document (.doc), or PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation (.ppt) file format.

But I can't open it to re-save it, can I?

What I should have said last night is, that given the unreliability of my new memory stick, I was prepared to risk leaving things on the disk drive.

[Benson]

Don Basilo why is your laptop die?

Maybe you can try new battery.

[Don Basilio]

Benson

http://www.r3ok.com/index.php/topic,2928.0.html

It's at John Lewis, Purley Way.  It won't turn on, and I'm hoping it is a merely mechanical fault, rather then one involving wiping the diskdrive clean.

[Selva Oscura]

Don Basilo why is your laptop die?

Maybe you can try new battery.

Veering off topic, and without wishing to be rude, I can't help noticing that English doesn't seem to be your native language, Benson. I wonder what is, and where you're posting from. I'm sure the membership would be very interested, given the international character of this messageboard. 

[David Underdown]

Sounds like it is the latest format then, opening it notepad works better with the older versions of Word.  Try changing the extension to .zip as I mentioned above.  You should then be able to open it up and see the internal structure of the file.  You should see a few folders, in the experiment I've just done they are called _rels, docProps and word, and an xml file called [Content_types].xml.

Open up the word directory and there's a file called document.xml.  Open this up, and surrounded by lots of xml tags, particularly <w:t> and </w:t> you should see the actual text of your document.

[Don Basilio]

David, thank you, but I don't understand.  Are you suggesting I change the name of the doc to one with a new extension?

[David Underdown]

Yes, just rename the file, at the moment it should end in .docx - change that bit of the name to .zip