How can I recover files from flash drive?

Here are detailed steps for you to rescue your contents there:

1). Do not overwrite this hard drive in case of real data loss problems.

2). Scan it with data recovery software to see whether all of your wanted contents inside this drive could be restored. There are always many data recovery tools online. Just select one for your hard drive , like uFlysoft, iCare Data Recovery Free, 4Card Recovery and TestDisk, etc.

3). Save and back up all restored data on a different drive in case of data loss.

Never forget to make data backup again in the future.

Telling somebody to scan their drive with software that doesn't work does not constitute "detailed steps".

uFlysoft has one review which gave 1 star and asked for their money back.

iCare Data Recovery got a similar review and seems to be for PC not Mac.

Same for 4Card Recovery.

TestDisk is a bit better, but the best option for Mac has always been DiskWarrior and even that rarely saves anything usable.

Peter

For future reference, you should never EVER actively work with files stored on a removable flash drive. They're fine for transporting files from one place to another, but they are too prone to corruption to be used as working storage. Sooner or later you will lose data. I still get at least one user a week coming into my office because they lost the files on their thumb drive, no matter how many times I tell them not to do that.

Flash drives come formatted to FAT32 by default.

Pages 5 suffers from an oddball and varying assortment of formats most of which are an Apple package which contains a sequence of files stored in a zipped set of folders all held together (but not always) with an Index.xml file.

It is possible that the FAT32 formatting has misunderstood or deconstructed the package format. Usually that means you should see all the subsidiary files and folders, but not always.

You can try verifying/repairing the Flash drive with Disk Utility and see what that does.

Peter

1. Don't save directly to your flash drive

2. Consider your files gone for whatever reason, there seems to be a problem with your drive

3. There are recovery programs but they take considerable time to recover files that are usually nameless and useless.

Cut your loses and check next time, making sure not to make it your principal storage, especially as it is using FAT32 and not the MAc's native HTFS+ Journaled.

Peer

It occurs to me that it could be simply not ejecting the Flash Drive properly, which happens far too often.

In theory, if it is not some cheapy Chinese bargain, Flash Drives should be as durable, if not more than a hard drive.

Peter