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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?!
- 5/23/08 4:31 PM
incorrect label
by enimmo - 5/10/08 5:40 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Paul,
I have noticed many flash drives may seem like they are not being detected when in fact, they are. Open Windows Explorer and check your other drive letters: mapped drives, card readers, cameras, etc. Sometimes flash drives will actually be accessible through the other drives even though they may retain their original label. To be sure, Open computer management, and go to Disk Manager. From there, you can look for "Removable Disk" and then change the drive letter to something else. After changing the driver letter, that flash drive will always show up if you plug it into the same USB port.
Drive Aanalysis
by redking44 - 5/10/08 7:10 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This thread is very interesting. It seems there are many ways in which a drive can seem to fail because of windows oddities which are nothing to do with the drive itself.
As mentioned before, I have had experience of failed MP3 players (which are basically overgrown flash drives) and know several people who have had drives fail.
In my case, windows does not detect one drive at all, and the other is detected but can't be installed; it seems the identification data sent by the USB device may be garbled.
In the end, everything that can be said here is only speculation. Educated speculation, granted, but without access to the failed drives, there is no way to know for sure why they failed.
It would be nice to hear that a simple windows tweak fixed everything, but I doubt it's that simple. If that doesn't happen, I'd really like to see CNET arrange for an appropriate authority to take one of these drives and find out what really happened.
And my cynical belief is the drives performed exactly according to design specs. There is no profit in a drive that works perfectly indefinately. They are designed to fail.
Hope this works for you.
by Danni Sarena - 5/10/08 7:19 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Paul
Try this:
(I use Windows XP - instructions may need modifications if you use something else)
Plug in your Flash Drive
Select "Start"
Right Click on "My Computer"
Select "Manage"
On the left, click on "Disk Management"
Find your flash drive at the top and right click on it
Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths..."
Select "Change"
Click on the drop down box and choose another letter. The best ones are "X", "Y" or "Z" as there is less liklihood of a confict.
Click "OK"
Click "yes" to the warning
Exit out of the screen.
Hopefully the computer will now recognize the flash drive.
Good luck.
Danni
Windows XP does not recognize Kingston DataTraveler 100 8gb
by Shanti-Peace - 8/27/08 5:20 PM In reply to: Hope this works for you. by Danni SarenaThank you for the suggestion. It worked. I changed from "G" to "Z" and Windows XP recognized the Kingston DataTraveler 100 8gb flash drive.
flash drive for paul
by briand0 - 5/10/08 7:31 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
i had a similar problem where every time I put a flash drive into the usb port the screen went blue and nothing would work until I restarted the set.I replaced the ports and still the same. Eventually the problem was solved after reloading xp.
dead flash drives
by srtools1980y - 5/10/08 10:49 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
hi!
are u following the proper uninstall (safe removal) procedure?
please reply wat u do before unplugging the drive from the usb port.
regards
srt.
Dead Flash Drive(s)
by buddy1996 - 5/11/08 7:49 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Particularly NOW, with Vista, you might like to check your systray (lower right icons)for one that notes "safely remove hardware". If Paul has been simply "unplugging" the USB stick it now seems to require pre-clicking on "safely remove hardware". While unplugging may work a couple of times, eventually it seems that the computer will not "recognize" the stick. My assumption is, that should Paul click on the icon he'll find a number of "drives" to remove, which is nothing more than an accumulation of removing the stick improperly.
Paul's flash drives
by larry123 - 5/11/08 11:40 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Sounds to me like a bad connection between the flash drive and F.R.E.D..
Gently clean the terminal connections on both the flash and F.R.E.D. I use a Q-tip and alcohol. The Q-tip is squeezed so it becomes flat and is damp.
A simple answer
by unit63 - 5/11/08 2:00 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a JumpDrive Traveller than didn't want to make the trip to Vista. But it seems that the problem was a faulty USB connection as in the J.D. male was out of shape and did not make solid contact.
After 3 or 4 tries, and a little jiggling, there it was. This now seems to be the norm for that little fellow.
Maybe varied use on different machines caused the distortion.
I have not had that problem with a SD card/USB converter.
Your probably pulling your flash drives out incorrectly
by Jordon Berkove - 5/11/08 3:15 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The proper way to disconnect a flash or thumb drive is to go to the "safely remove hardware" icon (It looks like a green arrow over a ipod) on the bottom right section of your tray/click on it/ then if there is more then one device listed select the correct one. You will probably see, "USB mass storage device". If you click on that you will usually see the manufacturers name listed in the mess. Be careful as some motherboards will list SATA Hard drives there also so if you see Seagate, Western digital or a hard disk manufacturers name thats NOT it. When you find it, highlight it and click close. Unless you have a file open on it with Explorer or some other program, a message that it's safe to remove the device. Then you can safely remove it. If you cant get it to release, you can always shut down your PC and then remove it once it's powered down.
"crashed" flash drives
by jbwestcnet - 5/11/08 6:52 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Are you unplugging them without first "stopping" them first?
That will "crash" the drives with corrupt file systems. The only way I could recover from doing that is either reformatting them, or, plugging them into a Linux box and running "fsck" to repair the "disk".
If you are passingly familiar with disk partitioning, file systems & etc, you can try a bootable linux image (no installs on your hard drive) and try to detect & fix your flash's. Try something like http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Good luck.
Dead Flash Drives
by yachtaiwa - 5/11/08 7:42 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Sorry about your flash drives dropping out. Over the last year I have notice on a few laptops that I have repaired, when you switch 'ON' there is a surge of un-needed power which go's through your USB ports. Do not plug your memory stick in till machine is up and running. Hopping this little hint my help..happy hacking.
Check drive letter assignment
by bdhufnagel - 5/11/08 7:44 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In XP, try going to Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Computer Management\Storage\Disk Management to see if the flash drive is there but assigned a drive letter Windows has a conflic with. If your flash drive is there, right click on it and select Change drive letter and paths...
Then choose the Change... button and another pop-up will show a pull-down selection of drive letters. Choose one you don't think will conflict with other plug-in USB devices and see if that helps.
computer won't recognize the drive
by jeficarra - 5/16/08 7:44 PM In reply to: Check drive letter assignment by bdhufnagelPlease go to Device manager and in the properties of USB hub disble Power management fiture.
Petar
Dead flash drives
by Ankit B. - 5/12/08 1:01 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Paul,
I know of one circumstance where any Windows XP machine will fail to recognize a flash drive. This may or may not be your problem. Some iterations of Windows OS require portable drives to be stopped and ejected via the 'safely remove hardware' wizard before any data is actually written to them. When data is copied onto the portable media in this situation, Windows will show that it has been copied, but will actually keep a log of the intended data transfer without carrying it out (Windows XP uses a delayed-write cache to speed up programs). When a user 'properly' removes a portable drive through the remove hardware dialog, the logged data transfer will be actually performed and the files transferred to the device and then Windows tells itself that the drive is not connected. Finally, it tells you that the flash drive can now be removed.
Almost all flash memory devices use some form of 'hot pluggable' interface to connect them with the various electronic devices they support. Hot pluggable means that the memory can be attached and removed from a powered-on device without fear of damage or hardware failure. USB is the most obvious example of this technology, and one that we are all familiar with. The one problem with this type of interface is the sense of invulnerability it engenders in the user. We become so accustomed to inserting and removing our flash memory devices at will that we often forget to make sure that all data transfer tasks have stopped first.
Trouble arises when users simply yank the USB media out of the computer without using the safely remove hardware option. There is no surer way to mess up a portable storage device than to yank it out of its socket when it is halfway through an operation. If you just pull the flash drive out without doing the Safely Remove Hardware step, you may lose the data that you thought was already written to the flash drive. Also, Windows won't properly turn off its internal settings for the drive. That means, if you insert the drive again, Windows XP won't recognize it.
Also Check in Disk Management and try to "assign" a drive letter
It is also possible you're plugging this drive into a USB hub?
Try plugging it in directly to one of the USB ports in the back of your computer.
Drivers shouldn't be an issue as XP uses a generic USB mass storage driver which works with pretty much all thumb drive (and most external hard drive) chipsets.
If there's nothing important on the thumb drive, you can try repartitioning and formatting the drive. It doesn't make sense it would work in one Windows XP and not the other, but I've seen it happen.
Try this: Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc
CAUTION: Do not alter any other drives. ONLY your thumb drives!
Find your thumb drive in the lower pane of the window, right click on the coloured partition blocks and triple check to make sure it is your thumb drive before continuing. Proceed to delete your thumb drive's partition(s).
Right click in the empty space of your thumb drive and create a new partition. Right click and format it in FAT or FAT32. It should work. And if you don't see your thumb drive listed, then something is wrong at the driver/hardware level.
Flash memory has a finite lifespan measured in erase and write cycles. That is to say, a specific block of NAND memory can only be written to and erased x number of times before it fails to reliably store data. In modern flash devices, this number generally extends to millions of operations, and longevity is further ensured by an algorithm built into the supporting circuitry of the memory that forces data to be written evenly across the available memory blocks, preventing one area of memory from becoming more 'worn' and failing faster. Supplementing this is another system which ensures that 'worn' sectors are mapped out of the grid of available memory, similar to the method used to deal with bad sectors in hard disk drives.
Flash memory can and does wear out though. While a typical USB drive or memory card should last years or decades of typical use, exposing flash media to more read-write intensive operations like running an operating system or hosting applications will cause premature wear and tear and the eventual failure of the device. So never defragment these drives, by defragging, you will wear them out faster.
I have been using my USB flash drives / hard drives for years and only one has stop working and that was a hard drive not a flash drive. I think it is extremely rare that three thumb drivers will go “bad” simultaneously. This suggests that there may be a problem with the way you are using them or in the environment you are using these drives. Also check that the USB extension wires that you are using are fine or not. You could also be a victim of a bad lot or fake copies of the drives. You didn’t mention whether you bought them together and from the same store or not. I bought a Kingston or what I thought was a Kingston 16 GB DataTraveler it turned out to be fake.
As for the data recovery is concerned you can go in for a professional help if the data is critical or opt for data recovery software which may or may not work in your case. While attempting recovery of data from a corrupted drive, your success here will vary depending on what exactly is wrong with the flash memory device in question. If the file system has been scrambled due to some devices performing an unexpected action or not reading the drive correctly, you may well be able to recover your data using special data recovery software.
On the other hand, if your device is failing due to physical damage or wear and tear, data recovery depends entirely on what part of the flash memory is damaged. One positive is that, unlike hard drives, flash devices have no moving parts and thus do not generally fall victim to the 'snowball' damage effect, where data recovery efforts on a faulty drive inflict more damage on it even as they rescue some of the data.
Hope this helps in solving some confusion on dead flash drives.
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