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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?!
- 5/23/08 4:31 PM
Flash life
by TonyGore - 5/17/08 1:41 AM In reply to: Some great advice and recommendation to get you started by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The number of read/write cycles of flash is actually a statistical one - I know because I did the original research on how to extend life for use in car odometers back in the early 1980s. Thus if it is good for 1000 cycles, this might be a probability of 99.999%. Better process control over the years has reduced variance, but this has a downside. If there is a problem with a batch, it likely affects all the batch. (I know this to my cost when all three Seagate disks for a RAID 1 + hot spare all failed within the first few months because they came from the same batch).
As they get older, it takes longer to erase and write; I suspect that modern algorithms do this.
I don't know where you are posting from, but a warning to all people who live in places where it gets extremely cold. Don't leave these things overnight in your car outside in the winter. One way to erase these things is to subject them to extreme cold temperatures. Modern ones might be better, but it is something that people tend to forget. The temperature spec on consumer components is 0-70 deg C; automotive may be down to -40 deg C, but these are selected, more expensive parts and may have been designed differently to work down to that.
As someone else posted, don't run a defragment on them, as this will go through the read/write cycle life very rapidly (disk defrag may well move file fragments more than once to get the best arrangement).
As for the trojans - a few months ago I had to do some digging as to why certain computers where getting infected. I discovered that Windows XP sets an environment variable if it finds a USB memory stick plugged in at boot. Trojans off the music download sites used by kids make use of this, so as the kids swap music files, the trojans propogate.
Thus, I recommend that you only plug a USB memory stick in AFTER Windows has started up and you have logged in. This at leasts prevents the Trojan transferring itself quite so easily.
Reasons to not defrag
by Olifrench - 5/18/08 3:42 AM In reply to: Flash life by TonyGoreAs someone else has posted, the reasons to avoid defragmenting a flash drive are not that this adds write cycles to the drive but that firstly it goes against the algorithm that fragments files for the purpose of not writing the same sectors over and over again, thus prolonging the drive's life; secondly because defragmenting is not necessary as there is no speed advantage in doing so.
Why is hard disk fragmentation to be avoided? Because if the reading of a file involves reading sectors in different parts of the disk the read/write heads need to move to all those different parts and this mechanical movement takes time. If a file is not fragmented it resides in continuous sectors that can be read with smaller and fewer head movements. Flash drives don't have moving heads thus fragmentation is not a problem (but is an advantage when it is managed by the drive's firmware to prolong its life).
Safely remove drive icon disappears
by Tiesenhausen - 5/17/08 5:44 AM In reply to: Some great advice and recommendation to get you started by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
A lot of respondents to this thread have mentioned the safely remove drive icon, rightly. But, on my XP machine, the icon has gone on strike--it doesn't appear. The flash drives work fine (so far). I use the "eject" option on the right click menu from the drive icon. This seems to disconnect the drive. Nevertheless, I'd feel much safer, and it would be more convenient, if the safely remove drive icon came back.
I've heard of this elsewhere, but not of a solution. It's probably very simple.
Hoping for your help,
Michael
Getting back the Missing USB Safely remove Icon
by cavinl - 5/20/08 6:14 AM In reply to: Safely remove drive icon disappears by TiesenhausenTo get back the missing Icon create a new short cut on your desktop. Assign it's target as:
%SystemRoot%\System32\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
Assign it's Start in as:
%windir%
This will new bring up the Safely Remove USB Device. I keep this short cut on my desktop all the time to cover the times the Icon is missing from the Windows Tray...
Flash drive read-write and mounting
by Porch-a-Geese - 5/16/08 6:41 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Flash drives have limited read write cycles. If you are not able to mount the drive with one OS, use another. Use dd to recover the drive but be sure that you know the count and that the recieving drive is exactly the same but empty. If you have already flashed/cleaned the drive, forget dd.
USB Port
by saprising - 5/17/08 3:04 PM In reply to: Flash drive read-write and mounting by Porch-a-GeeseI use a Lenovo and have some Kingston flash drives that will not work on the port on the front of the machine but will on the back. Try moving them around. Even though it looks as though the drive is not mounted, go through the process of closing. Sometimes XP lies!
flash drive may need USB 2 not a USB 1
by solarcircle - 5/21/08 5:19 PM In reply to: Flash drive read-write and mounting by Porch-a-GeeseI've had problems with a computer recognizing a flash drive only to discover that it was plugged into a USB 1 on the front of an old computer so I plugged it into the USB 2 on the back and no more problem. I've also had the same problem while plugging in a digital camera.
USB Ports
by berri52 - 5/16/08 9:07 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
From the wording of your problem with flash drives I assume that the problem is that the computer is not recognizing the flash drive... If this is the case then the data will not be accessible. Try switching the flash drive to a different USB port. Also maybe deleting the USB drivers and reinstalling them might help.
Flash Drive-Write Protected
by tosim91 - 5/16/08 9:50 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Re: Problem with USB flash drive-"Write Protected"
There is a simple solution for this in the case of windows. First of all BACKUP THE REGISTRY!
Just do a "regedit" for StorageDevicePolicies key. . Get
into the Registry - Press Start ->Run, enter regedit, press Ok
Click on My Computer. Then press File Export, give some file
name to backup the registry. Just in caseyou ever need to rollback.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/StorageDevicePolicies .
In the right pane select "writeprotect" . RESET the value to '0' Repeat
the same for ControlSet001 and ControlSet002 incase they exist. Now plug
in your USB drives and it should work. Else just reboot the machine and try.
Avoid static charges. They kill micro circuits.
by RustySly - 5/16/08 11:03 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Most problems of devices failing upon inserting or removing from an USB port is an age old problem of which most people aren't aware.
When inserting or removing a flash drive or portable player that's not connected to power, ALWAYS touch the computer case first to neutralize the static charge that will destroy micro electonic items.
Flash drives are sturdy, but subject to immediate destruction from an unseen, unfelt static discharge from an individual's body.
Dead flash drives try sdcard formatter
by dwiehe - 5/17/08 1:54 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
try the panasonic sdcard formatter free download from
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html
SD Formatter
by klafex - 5/17/08 6:16 PM In reply to: Dead flash drives try sdcard formatter by dwieheSD Formatter is the find of the year! I've tried everything I could find and nearly threw my flash drive away more than once. Large Thanks!!
Erased flash drives...
by sky381213 - 5/17/08 3:25 AM In reply to: Dead flash drives? What's going on here?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It's simple Paul,
Stop wearing nylon knickers! You have most likely erased them with static.
A very common problem in the banking industry - one walk across the cashiers floor and a quick stroke of the safe handle, and gone are all your sign on data and key records..
Bet you've got them in those nice plastic cases, or strewn across your nice plastic coated computer desk hey?
Vicars Tart....UK
Flash Drive Not Recognized "Hot"
by wexmary - 5/17/08 4:16 AM In reply to: Erased flash drives... by sky381213Since we have some great stuff here, let me throw you a problem.
I am a professional techie. In my work PC, my two flash drives are not recognized if I plus them in after I log into the network. if I log out, plug the drive in, no problema.
Drives work hot on my home PC and work hot on other PCs. The easy answer is that my XP profile is messed up on my work PC in that regard. But is there any such thing as fixing a profile, usually it is total destruction and rebuild. And I have no desire to do that.
Thoughts?
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