Storage: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through?
- 5/16/08 2:15 PM
Follow the directions, People!
by lynjs - 5/17/08 1:10 PM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Since I have obtained a pc since 1994, and have went through four, I have come to the conclusion that people DO NOT READ DIRECTIONS of the software or the gadgets that they buy.
One must read, and re-read the directions as many times as it takes to make sure understanding is golden.
Jump Drive
by cobwln - 5/17/08 4:58 PM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It jumped to my friend when I left at their house and I never recovered it.
My 2 GB was in my gym bag for a few weeks.
by Kanija - 5/18/08 3:58 PM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
UGH, the horror...I feel sorry for it. I'm taking much better care of it now.
I like to keep my flash drive clean
by Pmeyers1978 - 5/18/08 8:16 PM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have accidently washed my 8GB flash drive 2 times in the washing machine. One time i found it in the machine afterwards and it was sitting in a puddle of water. However after letting it dry out completely it i still working fine and i have never lost any data on it.
Washing machine
by LithiumKid1976 - 5/19/08 9:08 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
i had a hp 512mb memory stick that i lost for about 3 weeks.
i finally found it in the rubber lip of the washing machine, when i was putting on a wash, so it had been through at least 10+ washes before i found it.
i took it out, shook it relatively dry, then left in standing straight up on the window sill. i gave it about 2 weeks drying there.
plugged it in to the pc, and it worked first time! 
I then had a 16gb memory stick which i lost......and it hasn’t shown up since 
Lexar Jump Drive Holding up Well
by christophkl - 5/19/08 10:27 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I drove over my 2GB Lexar Flash Drive a with a Ford Windstar, and it survived. This even happened on concrete! I was impressed and more than a little relieved.
Lots of abuse, 6 years old and still working.
by Pennydog2 - 5/20/08 7:14 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Mine has been dropped from two floor up onto concrete, used as a teething ring, berried in dirt and dug up a month later, baked in a hot car and ripped out of USB ports without using the safely remove device (hint it is wise to use it if you want to plug it back in).
These things are unbelievable in the amount of abuse you can give them.
I have even loaded a program on it and was able to run it from the stick itself, bit slow on the write cycle but it is still quicker than the hard drive.
I am tempted to get a mother board with boot from USB feature and a 16 MB stick, load Windows XP into it and see how it runs.
lost on a beach
by clayart55 - 5/20/08 9:59 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
lost my 2g flash on a beach. went back that night couldn't find it. went back next day and still no flash drive. on the way back to car, saw some garbage left under a cedar tree, 50 some feet from my initial foot steps. there it was in a pack rat nest, a little crewed up but still working great.
Problem with flash drives
by SUBRATO GOSWAMI - 5/20/08 10:13 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
A few days back, I inserted the flash drive unknowingly into a computer which was infected with Trojan. I realized my mistake when I put it into my home PC having a better AV, which instantly quarantined the mal-wares. It's another matter that I lost all the data I had in the flash drive. But the problem was that my OS (XP-SP2) does not recognize the flash drive itself. I formatted it. Now it is clear. But still, if I insert the drive into my computer and double-click, it says "access denied". But going thru right-click and explore, it opens. Why ?
Subrato
This sounds familiar try Zero File Format
by Pennydog2 - 5/21/08 1:25 AM In reply to: Problem with flash drives by SUBRATO GOSWAMIThis problem sounds familiar, but I have only seen it on hard drives.
From what I have been told about Trojans and viruses is that they can create invisible partitions on the drive and usually in the boot sections, these files are commonly 1 to 2 KB in size, which then grow or rather self replicate taking up more space.
Even if you were to reformat the the the virus can and usually does reappear. The only way I have found to get rid of this problem is to do a Zero File Format (ZFF), then reformat to NTFS or FAT32 the typical software I use for hard disks is MaxBlast3 which is supplied with any MAXTOR hard disk or you could get it from www.maxtor.com the program appears very Linux based. But this is for hard drives and work very well, I do not know if there is anything available for flash drives.
However there may be some tricks to try for example if your PC can boot from USB then maybe you can set you BIOS to do the following:
1. BOOT from CD
2. Secondary BOOT from USB
3. Tertiary BOOT from HDD
ESC key to exit, Y key to save BIOS settings
Insert USB drive, then MAXTOR CD then boot from CD
The menu is self explaining, once in go to disk utilities and in the next menu should be a list of drives connected, if the USB drive is shown then select drive and proceed, however if it is not shown then exit, as going any further will erase your hard drive chosen and Zero File Format is irreversible.(I have tried recovery programs after a ZFF and they don't work as there is total data loss).
Please take the above as a suggestion. If any one else has a better (non destructive) suggestion about how to Zero File Format a flash drive, it would be nice to know.
However if anyone else is suffering from reoccurring viruses even after reformat and total reload of OS, then try Zero File Format, I have even found that after this procedure I have recovered twice my original Hard Drive space and on other drives gained an extra 5 GB. It is even a good band aid fix for drives with missing or bad sectors.
Flashdrive failed
by ahmedharaf - 5/21/08 4:04 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi all.
I have seen this poll, and liked it. My flashdrive failed after I inserted into a computer USB port. I did not notice the lab assistant's label of NO FLASH DRIVES! pasted above the port.I sniffed the flash drive after removing from the port. It smelled like a burnt plastic.
this sounds like a fuse problem or psu problem with the pc
by jay128k - 6/5/08 9:08 AM In reply to: Flashdrive failed by ahmedharafthis happens mainly on pcs with old power supply units or a wrong fuse the fuse inserted is above 5.0v which means if a psu has a power management problem some devices get burnt
Hurricane Katrina
by Leauxra - 5/21/08 5:54 PM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My 512 MB PNY drive sat in a rotting flooded house for over 6 weeks, then a plastic bag on a porch for a few more weeks. Washed it off and dried it out, still works. CD's had the silver lining eaten off, hard drives don't even pretend to work, but somehow that little flash drive survived.
A 2 Gig flash drive was left in my pants pocket...
by CardsFan29 - 5/21/08 7:26 PM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
And the pants were put into the washing machine with the flash drive still inside!
I plugged in the flash drive into my computer and it came up just fine like nothing happened!
I of course was very happy and have vowed to never do that again.
Washed 4 times
by mschertaylor - 5/23/08 7:03 AM In reply to: Poll: What’s the worst thing your flash drive has gone through? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My son keeps his in his pockets. I have washed it at least 4 times and it still works. Imagine that. I went and bought me one hopefully mine is as strong as his.
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