Contrary to the opinion of the support guy I was able to recover my lost data from the broken Kingston Datatraveler Vault Privacy USB Stick which I have been using a couple of weeks now.

Until yesterday I was 100% content with this gadget.

But all of the sudden I got this no matter where I plugged in the stick and entered my password.

My question:

Please confirm, is there really no way to recover the data?

Answer:

I am afraid there is no way if.

If there was we would be in troubles. Part of security is also the fact that if lost or defective data is still unaccessable.

We always encourage keeping back-up as of the data. I hope you can recreate majority of it from other sources.

Please let me know for the replacement if you need me.

But being the skeptical and curious guy I tried to help myself before giving up.

The ruined directory structure looked very much to me like the result of a invalid file allocation table (FAT). It remembered me of a nearly lost old hard disk drive of mine.

So I gave some file recovery tools a try. Heck, why not?

And guess what, I was able to recover all the data with the help of PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery 4 – for free!

This is to show you that there are indeed ways to recover your data. If you need help with it just ask me.