The Protective Case

The 512MB SanDisk Memory Stick PRO comes with a large plastic protective case.

The protective case is a nice touch. It is crush-resistant and provides good protection for the Memory Stick PRO.

However, the hinge design is not as smooth as I would have preferred. Also, it is much larger than the Memory Stick PRO. So, that detracts from the Memory Stick PRO's advantage of being thinner and smaller than competing media.

RescuePRO

Although most of us assume that data deleted from a flash memory card is gone forever, that is actually not true. There are software that allows you to recover deleted data. One company offering such a utility is LC Technology with their RescuePRO software.

LC Technology's RescuePRO software is designed to work with any flash memory media. Although I cannot confirm it, LC Technology claims that RescuePRO can handle even formatted and corrupted data!

RescuePRO also comes with a Secure Erase feature that allows you to permanently delete data on your Memory Stick PRO (or other flash memory media). It also has an utility that allows you to create an image of your flash memory card for recovery purposes.

RescuePRO costs a hefty USD 40 (RM 152) but as a value-added feature, SanDisk offers a discount coupon code in the 512MB Memory Stick PRO package. This discount coupon code gives you a 15% discount when you purchase RescuePRO. You can find the RescuePro discount coupon code on the inside of the package's cardboard insert.

In addition, LC Technology offers a file recovery service exclusively for SanDisk flash memory media in cases where the files cannot be recovered using the RescuePRO software. Of course, such a service does not come cheap.

LC Technology charges a flat rate of USD 75 (RM 285) for SanDisk media up to 256MB in capacity. Recovery of higher-capacity SanDisk media will cost USD 125 (RM 475). So, unless you have just deleted your next masterpiece, this exclusive offer really isn't that great a deal.