Community Newsletter: Q&A: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?!
- 5/23/08 4:31 PM
Safely Remove Hardware Icon
by warpete - 5/9/08 9:27 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Paul, you may have noticed that annoying little icon on your taskbar--the one most people ignore that says "safely Remove Hardware". It has a purpose, especially with Thumb (Flash) drives. By default, Windows disables write-caching when it recognizes a new thumb drive. This allows the drive to be disconnected without using the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon, but also severely slows down the drive. I have seen drives that, for some reason by default, have write-caching enabled from the start. It is very possible to have your Data corrupted if you do not use the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon when removing a Thumb drive with write-caching enabled . It's simple enough to find out if write-caching is enabled. In "My Computer", right-click on the Thumb drive icon and choose "Properties", then "Hardware" and then highlight your Thumb drive and again select "Properties". Lastly, click the "Policies" tab. You will see two options in this box, one for "Optimize for quick removal" and the other "Optimize for Performance". Normally windows defaults a new Thumb drive to "Optimize for quick removal", but I have also seen this NOT to be the case. If your drive is "Optimized for Performance", and you unplug the drive at will, you can easily get problems exactly as you are describing. This may or may not be the case with you, but I think it's the number one starting point to look at.
Close the File
by PhilMB - 5/9/08 10:20 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had this same problem, and fixed it by making sure I detached the drive before pulling it out of the socket, especially after writing to it. In Windows always click on the SysTray "Remove Hardware" icon and wait until it returns the message to remove the device. I'm sure Mac and Linux have similar procedures.
Minimizing Problems with Flash Drives
by ltoribio - 5/9/08 10:41 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Care must be exercised in using flash drives or "memory sticks" on PC's. The first and most obvious rule is to know what the USB requirements of the Flash Drive are and what type of USB the PC offers. If the Flash drive requires USB 2 but the PC only has USB 1, then you need to obtain a USB hub to interface your Flash Drive properly.
Secondly, be patient. Give the PC time to properly read the Flash Drive before attempting to write new files to it. Opening the files after they have been written to the Flash Drive may help to ensure that they have been properly saved.
Most importantly: make sure you properly prepare the Flash Drive for removal before removing it from the USB socket. This can be accomplished by locating the icon on the task bar which carries the flag "safely remove hardware." If you cannot locate that icon, then the safest thing to do is shut down Windows prior to removing the Flash Drive.
And don't take one computer's word that the Flash Drive is unreadable, or needs formatting. As was the case with diskettes,
one PC may occasionally not recognize a device written by another PC. Rebooting the PC with the Flash Drive in the socket may correct the problem. If that doesn't work, shut down the PC and try the Flash Drive again in the PC that originally created the files.
Leo Toribio
flash drive failure - flash drives are limited life devices.
by nogard0 - 5/16/08 7:30 PM In reply to: Minimizing Problems with Flash Drives by ltoribioflash drive failure - flash drives are limited life devices. my computer users group says that they have about 1 million (read/?)write cycles before they WILL fail. do not keep your important files on them like tax reports and such. limit the amount of use. AND DO NOT use a defragger on them ... it will only hasten the death of your flash drive. also personal use has taught me that the maximum number of files at root level (due to the file system on them - usually FAT) is about 500 files, no matter how big the files are ... they may be 1k files on a 1 gig drive but you can only have about 500 of them at root level. best to split up many files into folders. reformatting to FAT32? may take care of this but will also hasten the death.
flash drive failure - also can be the usb reader on them.
by nogard0 - 5/16/08 7:40 PM In reply to: flash drive failure - flash drives are limited life devices. by nogard0flash drive failure - also can be the usb reader on them. in some instances the flash drive has a special usb device helper file for accessing put in by the manufacturer. in some cases this file conflicts with the one on the user's machine making it not able to access the flash drive. i cannot remember the file name but it has to do with a usb something accessing file that is usually on user's machine. renaming this file temporarily will possibly allow the flash drive's version to allow access.
Itoribio, USB 2 is backwards compatible with USB 1
by Olifrench - 5/17/08 1:04 PM In reply to: Minimizing Problems with Flash Drives by ltoribioYou said: "If the Flash drive requires USB 2 but the PC only has USB 1, then you need to obtain a USB hub to interface your Flash Drive properly." I believe this to be wrong: Not only a USB 2.0 device will work with a USB 1 port, albeit at greatly reduced speed, but there is no USB hub that will give you USB 2 from a USB 1 port; that's just not possible. A Ferrari can go at a bicycle's maximum speed but not the reverse.
I haven't seen any mention yet of a problem I have seen several times where a USB port stops working for a particular device but the device works on the adjacent port and the port works with other devices. Has anybody seen this happening, and more importantly... has any way of fixing it?
back up always to cd
by pinkbumble - 5/9/08 10:48 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
flash drives are known to not be 100% fool proof. Always back up on cd's. I purchase inexpensive cd's for this for peace of mind
safely removing flash drives
by davidbmac - 5/9/08 11:19 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Are you making sure the computer(s) are no longer writing to or reading from the flash drives when you pull them out of the USB ports?
to remove properly: click the icon in the notifications area of your task bar and select the drive you want to remove, and then wait for the message saying it is safe to remove.
Safely Removing Flash Drives
by skelax - 5/17/08 12:56 AM In reply to: safely removing flash drives by davidbmacI used to have the same problems when removing and reinstalling flash drives. At first I was just using the SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE ICON but when I connect it back, the drive is non-existent. So what I did was reboot the computer and the flash drive came back. But rebooting takes a lot of time so I just put the computer in STAND BY mode, then connect or reconnect the flash drive. Then by pressing any key or moving the mouse, my computer springs back to life and the flash drive is always there ready for reading or writing. Since then I did not have any trouble with the flash drives.
Dead flash drive now reconised
by gregoraptor - 5/9/08 11:43 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The reason the flash drive does not work is that it is no longer reconised by the system. I had the same problem, the answer is to get a good registetry cleaner and this removes all the details of these from the registry and then a restart and it will work again.
All the best,
Paul
flash drive
by LostValley - 5/10/08 1:25 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've had similar problems with various motherboards and usb hardware. 1st off, make sure you have the most current mobo drivers, particularly USB. Some flash drives require their own drivers. Double check drive manufacturers site. While there be sure to glance through generic and device specific faqs. The data shouldn't be lost. Do try to find a machine that recognizes each of the drives and immediately back up the files. Secondarily check motherboard faqs as there are addressability issues but they usually don't come into play until you get into the hundreds of gigabyte sizes. Plug and pray has come a long way but has a ways to go. Today an actiontec dsl modem plugged into USB port caused my machine to request TI drivers. No TI chips on mobo and none shown in modem specs. Go figger.
Boot failure
by beyondtoday - 5/10/08 2:05 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
one of the bigest probs with flash drives and also a lot of other removable media too is when you take it out of the usb without using the remove tool in your taskbar first the data in the unit may not have finished saving the data recieved from the computer fully thus you get errors and damage boot sectors
it is important to use the device removal tool each time so the flash drive is not still talking with your computer.
The data may still be on your flash drive and readable too
what you need to do is turn off your computer connect your flash drive up to a different usb port turn on your computer and hope that your system can reconize it as the system loads other wise you may want to try using a bluetooth conection to the flash drive and upload to your phone or computer via the bluetooth
Best of luck
Sandisk Sd cards
by melvynlaycock - 5/10/08 2:26 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use sandisk 4GB flash cards which come with an adapter which turns them into a flash drive. They also come with a recovery disk which is a mini CD which contains SanDisk RescuePRO. This is data recovery for any memory card format. I suggest you obtain one of these. Flash drives fail all the time as you say work one day and not the next. Hope you find this helpful.
M. A. Laycock
Flash does die
by Rick75230 - 5/10/08 2:36 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here's a related question: Can you use a flash drive for virtual memory, since obviously it would be a lot faster than a physical drive?
MS did set up Vista to allow this. HOWEVER, it will only work on SOME flash drives. The reason given is that unlike magnetic media flash drives do have a reprogramming limit. On some drives it is about 70,000 reprogrammings. Most likely some of the flash drives that failed are failing because they have gone beyond the maximum number of reprogrammings.
Some built in card readers are hit or miss
by KAWGIRLVAL69 - 5/10/08 3:41 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have found my built in card reader to be hit or miss, especially as the memory of the card increases, and also from card manufacturer to manufacturer. The add-on card readers have been more reliable. I am guessing that they are more current in technology.
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