Can USB sticks be fixed?

[Erin-Rose-x]

My USB stick/pen drive has broken. It's a standard pen drive and contains very important coursework, I'm completely devastated and obviously extremely angry with myself that I didn't have any back up copies of my work. I've heard that it's unlikely for pen drives to be repaired and their files to be recovered but is there any way that they can be? Please help.

[murraymints]

Can't you ask in the IT dept where you are studying ..you must have techs on hand there that may be able to help !

[snags]

''My USB stick/pen drive has broken.''

How exactly?

[Erin-Rose-x]

Yes I'm going to ask the technician tomorrow, but I highly doubt that pen drives can be fixed, I was just wondering if/hoping they can be.

[Erin-Rose-x]

Well when I normally plug my USB in, a tiny green light turns on, which means it has successfully connected to the computer. As soon as the light didn't turn on today, I thought maybe the green light is just faulty but it turns out that my pen drive is just broke and doesn't connect to my computer, meaning I can't access any saved files. I think it's just worn out, I've had it for quite a while..

[snags]

Have you tried it in another computer?

[ChuckFickens]

Or even just a different USB port?

[squarebear]

Oh jeez! This happens all the time. You MUST work off your hard drive and only use your USB to transfer files from one place to another. NEVER work off your USB stick.

I used to see this all the time with floppy disks too. I seriously doubt it can be fixed I'm afraid.

[ChuckFickens]

Somebody else learns that having just one copy of anything important on any media at all is a bad idea the hard way.

[Erin-Rose-x]

I'm not asking to be told off, I obviously know now that it was a bad idea not to save more than one copy, all I'm asking is: Can broken USB sticks be repaired or can the files be extracted from it?