Data Recovery from USB Flash Drive-RAW File System

I have a USB flash drive which has data on it but when I plug it in, a prompt appears asking to format the drive. I need to recover the data from this USB. It is approximately 500MB, and the USB shows as a RAW file system. Does anyone know how I can recover my data?

Thanks in advance if its possible.

 

i dont know too much about the RAW file system, but isnt that what drives are before they are formatted? i see you are using vista but i have used PC Inspector File Recovery and also Turbo File Uneraser on XP machines. They are both available by searching download.com for "file recovery" and then using the "Free" filter. I have used these both for USB drives and they worked, and I have also had files neither could save. Maybe something you pay for is better but the files i was recovering werent all that important. Havent tried either of these on Vista yet. Maybe some others know of some better programs.

 

Thanks for the reply. Its not related to Vista...its a Windows related issue. I tried using some free software downloaded from download.com and these programs show the files, but to actually save them you have to pay. Right now I am letting my knowledgeable Linux friend try to retrieve them.

 

yea thats how most of them are on download.com for file recovery. but if you use the filter and put in free it only shows programs that are completely free to use.

 

I had the same problem(or a very similar one) and i needed to get some important files back. that PC inspector File Recovery is an ace program and will stay on my hard drive forever. It's a bit tricky to use at first not knowing what alot of the buttons do, and the program crashes sometimes when it's given too much to do, but used carefully, it's an excellent program.