So you thought that your USB flash disk was the perfect data-saving and backup tool? I thought so too until, one day, I could no longer open the files on my thumb drive. So I surfed the ‘Net and discovered I wasn’t alone. USB data recovery is now another service offered by data recovery firms over the Internet. It seems many people have already encountered problems with flash devices they once thought to be perfect.

Our PC’s Universal Serial Bus ports make it possible for us to save almost as much work as we do on our hard drive (even as much as 1 GB or more!), but this time on a portable, plug-and-play device. PC systems nowadays generally have a USB flash driver and if yours doesn’t, you can easily download it off the Internet.

But I’m now beginning to see that burning my backup files to a DVD or CD is probably much better, even if it’s less convenient.

So many things can cause flash data loss or database damage, such as:

• Power interruptions or surges.
• Forgetting or losing passwords to locked places in the flash drive.
• Viruses.
• Accidental file deletion.
• Extreme temperature damage.
• Other physical damages caused by water or fire.

Whether a USB data recovery service can help you get back your files or not will depend on the extent of damage.