Small, portable storage devices such as USB pens and the memory cards used primarily in phones, cameras and audio devices, have become popular places for storing large volumes of data. Where this data is largely downloaded material such as audio then and failure resulting in data loss might be a mere inconvenience, but when the data is question is irreplaceable then data recovery might be the only answer. Photographs from weddings, and of deceased loved ones are often stored on removable media with the intention of it being transferred to some other longer term media, and when a problem strikes the result can cause a great deal of heartbreak.

Hard disk and tapes have moving parts and there is often a temptation to believe that solid state devices will be a better bet in the long term precisely because they do not. The trouble is that memory devices are only reliable for a certain number of operations and so do wear out, they also often have supporting circuitry that can fail, and anything that sticks out of a USB socket on the front of a PC is at great risk of being damaged.

With camera media there is also the risk of accidental deletion or formatting. Trying to operate a camera, especially if unfamiliar and under pressure (for example at a wedding) can easily result in accidental deletion of files or formatting of a card.

With most removable devices the file systems are quite straightforward, and the manner of use means that files are not heavily fragmented. This does mean that one of the free or low cost data recovery utilities that can be found on the web might well be the answer and save the cost of a data recovery service. One caveat is that if you are not familiar with using software then there is a risk to consider that you could end up making the problem worse. A professional data recovery company will secure a physical copy of the device before attempting to perform a file recovery so that nothing can go wrong. If yo uare careful though there should not be a problem.