dying flash drive?

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:35 am

What does a flash drive act like when it goes bad? My mother has a Dell 128mb keychain drive that she uses for school stuff. Mostly word and exell files, stuff like that. Tonight she tried to save a file from a laptop and she got an error saying she didn't have the correct permissions to save the file (WTF?) The laptop is a loaner from her school and is set up with one user and that should be irelevent anyway when trying to write to a removable drive. right? So I put her flash drive in the desktop and now I cannot copy/paste a file onto it. A short time later she is able to save a file onto it, but when she tries to rename it she gets the check to see if your drive is full ect. nonsence (I checked and it's only 1/4 full) Oh yeah, there is no trouble reading the info, it just seems to be when writing.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:25 am

I'd reformat the drive - might just be corrupt. But yes, you'll get all kinds of errors accessing it when it's dying.

If you want to be sure it's okay, do a full scandisk on it (with sector tests).

Sometimes grunge gets on the contacts. A quick shot of contact cleaner (available from Radio Shack) will help (avoid WD40 - it leaves a residue).

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:52 pm

thanks. I'll check it out. I'm kinda limited as to my options here, they're out in the middle of nowhere here. I suspect the drive is going, but it's less than a year old with light usage. oh well. I'll give it a scan, didn't think of that... imagine, treating a flash "drive" as is if were a "drive". I guess that wisdom is what separates the pro's from us neophytes

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:14 pm

Interesting twist guys. Ran scandisk on it and for giggles, tried to do a defrag. Windows sees the drive as a read only volume! Somebody here has to know how to change that, I thought the read-only flag was file specific...

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:25 pm

There should be a switch on the drive that locks/unlocks it for writing.. I think?

eGo

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:59 pm

What he said. Some drives have a write protect switch.

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:00 pm

um, there is no switch on this one... can you set it through windows somehow? (I'm thinking how it used to be under dos?)

GuardianAsher · Post by **GuardianAsher** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:44 pm

Any model numbers on that thumb drive? Does it look like this?

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:31 am

yepp-er, thats the little bugger right there. I am guessing that you know, or have prior experience with this particular little bit of joy?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:23 pm

Some of them use a software application to lock them.

GuardianAsher · Post by **GuardianAsher** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:14 pm

Originally posted by theophilusmousse
yepp-er, thats the little bugger right there. I am guessing that you know, or have prior experience with this particular little bit of joy?

Yeah, I had a friend who had one, the little piece of crap that it is. Suggestion to you is tell your mother to get a new thumb drive, that little thing only causes problems in my past experiences.

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:22 pm

Thanks, I was pretty much going there already.
I guess she got it from the school store for real cheap. Anyone have suggestions on who makes flash drives with a GOOD reputation, ie. Sony, Lexmark, Belkin... I've had no problems with my lexmark so far, but I'm open to opinions/advice from all.

GuardianAsher · Post by **GuardianAsher** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:29 pm

Personally, I'd sugest either Lexar or Sandisk. I've had about 10 drives from either pass through my hands at one point or another, and never had a single problem with them. But in all honesty, to limit it, try Sandisk. Either you could get another thumb drive, or if your mother has a device like a camera or something that uses a flash card, you could get a drive that doubles as a flash reader? Just my $0.02

theophilusmousse · Post by **theophilusmousse** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:03 pm

She uses it to transport files back and forth from school, so she does need a flash drive, not just a reader. But thanks for the imput, I'll have her get one of those two.

Lexmark/Lexar... oops, my bad. Yeah, the body of the one I have makes it impossible to use on some machines, I'll have her get a Sandisk.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:14 pm

Lexar is my recommendation too. If she wants to put it on a keychain the only flash drive I've ever found that can be put on a keychain without snapping off is the JumpDrive sport. You will NEVER lose it if it's on the keychain.

Very fast, reliable and rugged. I nearly bent on in half and it still works. If the rubber cap breaks Lexar sells replacements on their website store.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820191127

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820191129