Issue with ADATA thumbnail.

<p>I didn't know where to post this. The hd is full and suddenly it's telling me about formatting is. I'm not sure if I initially formatted it or not. Anyway, would like to pull the info/photos from it...and the erase everything. For time being I'm not formatting anything....could use some recovery (?). Getting through to ADATA or their support is pretty much impossible (by design). Appreciate any helpful suggestions.</p>

<p>Les</p>

<p>Les, what kind of hard disk is it? ADATA does not make conventional hard disks, as far as I know; and a full drive is not a reason that it suddenly would need formatting - so something else must have gone wrong. Could you provide a bit more history what happened before this went wrong?<br>

And info like what kind of system you're talking about (is this a system running Windows, which version, etc).... that would help too.</p>

<p>Thanks for responding, Wouter. Basically I made a mistake by letting the thumbnail (8GB) get full and when I try to open it, I'll get this tile about 'formatting'....and I'm like whaaaa ? The thumbnail worked without any glitches prior to that. I'm using XP Pro. </p>

<p>About 1/2 yr ago I bought Patrist thumbnail drive. Currently it's about 1/4 full, but it works without any snags, so definiately not connected to any USB issues.</p>

<p>Any ideas ?</p>

<p>Les</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Ah, ok... now I get where I got confused. A thumbnail is something else, what you are talking about is called a thumb drive (or more often simply a USB drive).<br>

As said before, a full drive has got nothing to do with the message about formatting. That is not related to one another. The message can come up when you disconnected the pen drive while the PC was still writing to the drive, this is the most common reason.So, for future reference, always first click the icon near the clock to safely remove the USB drive.<br>

Best to try now is: connect it to a PC, cancel any messages about formatting, go to My Computer, right-click the icon of the Removable Disk, and select Properties. There, go to tools, and try Error Checking. That might possibly resolve the problem.<br>

(<em>And a generic word of warning: never ever have the only copy of an important file on something like a USB drive</em>)</p>