Morning,
I agree, USB drives have the disadvantage of possible data loss over time, thats why I always backup important files to DVD as an archive,as well as USB.
I am lucky in that I have been involved with IT for past 20 years....and have a good understanding of the limitations of long term storage.
The move by 3rd party hosts to charging a fee for hosting was always in their strategy....and yes, it sucks so bad...and while FLickr is still "free", I am not sure that will be the situation for much longer.
Finally, I would be more than willing to try and recover your lost images from that USB drive...I doubt it has failed totally, its usually the communications card in the drive that fails...I can usually remove the drive and connect directly to it...PM me if you want to discuss.
Thanks...
