Where did my save data go?

[L1N3R1D3R]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this kind of thread, but I couldn't find a more fitting place for a technical problem with the Wii U. Mod, move this if necessary. Anyway...

A while ago I had moved my Captain Toad, Mario 3D World, and Wii Fit U data to a USB flash drive, leaving my Smash Bros 4 and Mario Kart 8 (and later Super Mario Maker) data on the Wii U itself. I recently got a flash drive with a much higher capacity, and I was planning to move the data from the old flash drive to the new one. However, when I opened the data screen for the old flash drive, it said "No save data found", even though it showed that it was 1/3 filled, and I hadn't touched that flash drive in a while.

Now, this is a major problem. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm worried that my save data for those three games is gone, which is bad because I worked a lot on those games (especially Captain Toad). What I do know is that even if the save data still exists and works, the Wii U doesn't show it, and so I can't move it to my higher-capacity flash drive.

Could someone help me here? I'd like to get my save data back, especially for Mario 3D world, as I was halfway through.

EDIT: The problem may have just gotten worse. I moved the Mario Kart 8 data from the Wii U to the new flash drive so I could have enough room to upload a Smash Bros. replay to YouTube (which you should totally go see!). After the upload was complete, however, it took me to a black screen with white text that said something along the lines of "There was an error with the flash drive", and I had to force-shutdown my Wii U. Now I'm scared... Help!

 

[Elin]

Can you try to contact Nintendo about it?

That's the best I got.

 

[Deleted member]

This was a week or so ago, but I believe what happened here is your flash drive "expired". For the future, I recommend using an actual hard drive if you want to reliably keep your data as flash drives are very fragile things and aren't safe to keep important data for the long haul like a hard drive is.

If you want something truly reliable for the long haul, I recommend getting a Solid State Drive which will keep your data for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time as it lacks moving parts.

Here is a 120gb one for 45-50$

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Internal-120GB-2-5-Inch-SDSSDA-120G-G25/dp/B00S9Q9UKS/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1444729120&sr=1-2&keywords=120gb+ssd&refinements=p_36:-7000

All you have to do is purchase the enclosure for it to use it via USB and you're good to go.

8$
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-I...id=1444728532&sr=8-4&keywords=2.5+sata+to+usb

And it makes the games load a few seconds faster, too.