Dead Thumb Drive

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Rick Granick

Rick Granick

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I have a 1GB USB flash drive ("thumb drive") that I bought at MicroCenter. It was fine last time I used it, but now when I plug it into the USB port it does not come up on the screen. What could cause this? Is there any way to retrieve files from it?
:kaffeetrinker_2: Rick

I don't even remember what-all is on it. I mostly use it for backing up and transferring files, but there may be some unique items on it.

This makes me nervous about the idea of using these for backing up POS systems.
 
Theyre solid state and generally will go forever. They could get zapped by water, static electricity, or a power jolt. I haven't seen one die yet.

They're generally great for backups of the daily POS data, because you'll be using a different one for all 7 days of the week and its unlikely that they will all fail at the same time.

I would suggest trying it in another computer, or clicking on MY COMPUTER on that one to see if the driver letter appears in the list.

Let us know
Mike
 
did you eject it through My Computer or Safely Remove Device or do you just pull it out of the usb slot? if you dont eject it properly you can corrupt the files that exist on it. sometimes usb slots on the front of a case stop working for one reason or another. try using an alternate usb slot or restarting the computer.......because were on the topic.......the band the white stripes arent releasing their new LP on cd, instead theyre making 512mb usb drives with 2 different designs printed on them. crazy digital age of music. :icon9:
 
I tried it on 3 different machines- no go. These are Macs, and generally the icon just pops up on the screen as another drive. I tried opening a finder window too, and it did not show up in there either. Normally when you first put it in, it flashes its little green LED while it's preparing to show up. That's not happening either.
:shrug: Rick

Fortunately, it's not my "main" one. I'll be backing THAT one up onto a CD this evening.
 
Look at the pins carefully, there could be some pocket lint preventing one of them from making contact. Maybe spray some air on the pins and make sure they look ok.

Mike
 
Good suggestion. I did try brushing out the contacts area this evening, but it did not help. Maybe I'll try some tuner cleaner from Radio Shack. Sometimes it is just something simple. Something tells me this thing is just electrically dead, though. I don't know what it could have been exposed to. I carry another (much older) one in the same pocket and it has no problems. It is made by Lexar, however, and the problem one is an OEM MicroCenter unit. Maybe you get what you pay for, although it seems something solid state should be pretty foolproof.
:mad: Rick
 
just as an exercise in 'after death analysis', you might send it to maker and see what they can find out????? wont help you now but these things are really stable and shouldnt have crashes(besides, if you're nice about it & just happen to mention that you have world-wide access to thousands of potential users, and that they should think about all the good will (& SALES) if they do right about it & offer you a few replacements???) :rolleyes:
 
Mike's suggestion to check if the drive is listed in My Computer would most likely eliminate this potential problem, but is it possible that the last time someone put it in they selected "Do this automatically" and then selected "Take no action"?

The other possibility is that a mapped network drive has been added that was assigned the next physical drive letter. For instance, on my workstation I have physical drives C:\ D:\ & E:\ and network drives F:\ G:\ H:\ & I:\. When I put a USB mass storage device in it uses F:\ but you can't do anything with it.

If that is your problem, you have to use the Disk Management console to re-assign the drive letter. I don't remember how to get there - I have a shortcut to it on my desktop now because I have to use it fairly often, but you should be able to do a search in Windows Help. Once you open it, scroll down in the bottom section until you see the Removable Drive listed. Right-click on it and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." Then "Change" and then select a different letter from the drop-down list. It will warn you that some programs may not run if they refer to the original drive letter - say OK. I use letters that make sense to me - like "T" for my Traveldrive, "N" for the Nikon, etc.
 
Dave- I use Mac computers, so we don't have a dialog like that. Normally, I put the drive into a USB port and it comes up as an icon on the screen. I double-click that and see everything on the drive. Also, in osX, every Finder window has a sidebar that lists potential sources of files to open. An external drive comes up right next to your HD on this list. This poor thing is just not communicating anymore. It might as well be a nice-looking but phony prop on Star Trek.
MicroCenter's website's description of this item says it has a "limited lifetime warranty". Next time I go out there I guess I'll be finding out whether that means they will replace it (but not the expense of replacing the data), or whether that simply means "we guarantee this device will have a limited lifetime".
:party: Rick
 
My understanding is that flash cards contain non-volatile RAM which allows your USB port to acknowledge the card repeatedly even though other data on the card changes. Even if you had accidentally re-formatted the card, it still should show up on your desktop as “untitled”. My guess is that this NVRAM went and got itself blitzed somehow.

If you’ve tried this drive on multiple machines or platforms and you still get nuttin’, it’s not likely that running Apples’ System Profiler will tell you anything especially if you know the drive is not mounting.

Unlike the microscopic pins on cards like CompactFlash, USB connections are fairly sturdy and tough to screw them up. Cleaning the contacts is worth a shot, but it’s not likely that will help, either.

If the files on the card are particularly valuable (irreplaceable), you might try a data recovery specialist, but they will tend to charge ~ $100/ hr just to look at it. Since these cards are relatively inexpensive, and you can always do another backup, you are probably better off chalking it up as a lost cause.

At least try to get reimbursed for it.
 
Yeah, that's my plan. I honestly don't think there was anything on the thing that I can't live without. I tend to use these for transporting files, pictures, etc. from one machine to another, rather than for archiving. My "main" USB drive does have a lot of important stuff on it, so I made a CD backup of it last night. At least that way I know what's on it, and have reasonably recent versions of those items backed up.

I wonder whether MicroCenter will (at best) just give me another OEM drive, or whether they'll let me apply the cost to the purchase of a better, branded unit.
:kaffeetrinker_2: Rick
 
Rick Granick said:
Dave- I use Mac computers, so we don't have a dialog like that. Normally, I put the drive into a USB port and it comes up as an icon on the screen. I double-click that and see everything on the drive. Also, in osX, every Finder window has a sidebar that lists potential sources of files to open. An external drive comes up right next to your HD on this list. [/I]".
:party: Rick
Click to expand...

Ah, isn't it sweet? I'm still trying to navigate my way around the Wizard computer and IF computer at work. Such an arcane filing system! But office and home? Macs are still by preference. One iMac is filling up, and I plan to clean it out, get a new one and move this one to the office at work. Then I will finally try Boot Camp and Parallels to run the Dark Side for those pesky work programs which require Windows.
 
Or just hook up an external hard drive to expand your machine's capacity. I'm sure your current HD's icon would love a companion to hang out with.
:popc: Rick

P.S. MicroCenter gave me another OEM drive, even exchange (minus the data, of course).
 
I've never had a thumb drive failure, but I have lost a couple of compact flash disks over the years. I'm ready for all of them to fail.

I once worked for a company that built gearmotors for elevators. One thing I learned from that job is that everything -- no matter how well built -- will fail eventually. Expect failure. Plan for it. Make backups for your backups and more backups and just to be on the safe side, redouble your redundancy. You can never have too many backups. That kind of operating philosophy is well advised for anything associated with an elevator, and it works for data backups, too.

Oh, and label your drives, so you can keep track of what's in them when you can't get to the data any more.:faintthud:
 
Mac iDisk

I have external hard drives at work in the office and at home which do automatic nightly back-ups, but I know this does not solve the problem of theft, electrical surges, and the like. Time to consider Mike's 7 day flash drive strategy. With multiple computers--2 at home, 3 at work so far, it could get confusing.

On the Macs, whenever I finish a document, I drop it on the iDisk (the Apple server individual storage for .mac members) and pick it up on another computer later on. Then hopefully I remember to take it off the iDisk and file it in the right place on the destination computer.

I just bought more iDisk storage. I love this system. No flash drives to carry current work from place to place.

I tell my kids to always back up but they don't. I'm thinking of buying them .mac memberships for college and law school. Then maybe they would remember to at least drag the document to the iDisk. Ugh, they never back up. I have told my son to just email himself his papers so that they are at least in cyberspace when the computer crashes.
 
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