USB flash drive quit working???

[lago]

I used it a week or so ago and now it isn't detected in my laptop or desktop.

Has anyone else had any problems with them? Makes me wonder just how reliable they can be.

Ken

[Slik Geek]

My experience has been that the electronic circuitry is reliable, but the mechanical portion (the connector) is not. I have one that will not work in my laptop, but works with most other computers.

You can try using a short USB extension cable or a USB hub. Sometimes the connectors in computers are too "cost effective" in their design to the point that they don't make reliable contact.

[ironhat]

I had a driver issue that caused mine to do that. I downloaded the approprite driver from the mfgr's site and I've been good to go. That's not saying that the Geek's answer doesn't make just as much sense. Mine's just the cheaper one to try, unless you already have the cable as he suggested.

[BTC3K]

Nothing Is Better Than 2

As A System Builder It Has Been My Experience To Expect That Nothing Is 100%. All The Answers Previous To This One Are Great However...never Trust Anything To Just One Medium Of Storage, You Must Always Over Copy To At Least Some Degree. I Hope You Did Not Lose Anything Too Vital.

B.

[atgcpaul]

I've had the opposite experience with my USB drive at work. Last Valentine's
Day when we had those bad ice storms, I dropped my USB drive in the parking
lot before going home for the night. The next morning I realized what I had
done and when I got to work, although the snow plow had been through, and
the drive was partially buried in the ice under the plow treads and the casing
even cracked, when I plugged it in it was OK! I just epoxied it back into place.

Paul

[LarryG]

Ken, how long have you had this thumb drive and how heavily do you use it?

I have read (although I've never personally hit this limitation) that these things have a finite number of read-write cycles, after which they can become unreliable. This is related to the flash memory itself, not the mechanical connector. IIRC the theoretical number is up in the thousands; as a practical matter, some people have found it best to replace them at least every couple of years, especially if you use it heavily.

[jziegler]

Ken, how long have you had this thumb drive and how heavily do you use it?

I have read (although I've never personally hit this limitation) that these things have a finite number of read-write cycles, after which they can become unreliable. This is related to the flash memory itself, not the mechanical connector. IIRC the theoretical number is up in the thousands; as a practical matter, some people have found it best to replace them at least every couple of years, especially if you use it heavily.

As an electrical engineer that has designed flash into systems, typical flash chips have a spec of 100,000 or more write/erase cycles. There is no cycle limit to reads that I have ever heard of. Some of the better flash manufacturers (Spansion, for an example) have many parts that have 1,000,000 write/erase cycles in the spec.

The most common (90% +) failure in electronics is mechanical, often a bad solder joint. Which is a possible problem with the thumb drive. Static damage is a possible cause too. But I doubt that it's exceeding the flash cycles, unless it was used for swap space.

Jim

[LarryG]

Okay, Jim, thanks. This is one of those things that I've never known if there was anything to it or not. I've read a number of complaints on places like newegg.com about flash drives giving trouble after two or three years. But that might well be due to hidden stress damage to the assembly, even though the outside of the unit looks fine.

[docrowan]

I've had a 256Meg in my pocket for three years, use it on average once a day at work, and it still works great. I lost the cap in a hotel room a couple of months ago and have to dig the lint out of the connector every so often and it STILL works great.

I got a 1 Gig as a spare about a year ago, kept it in my briefcase most of the time, used it about 20 times and it's failed. I've tried it in several computers and with a USB cable and no joy.

I don't trust them for permanent storage. My wife thought about using one to store digital pictures on in our safety deposit box and for the cost to storage space, plus uncertainty on the life span of the data, I told her to use CD's instead.

[LCHIEN]

The USB connection is a 4-wire connector. Probably if not detected as opposed to memory failing in operation, then probably the USB function (probably a connection) is broken.

if the data is not critical, I'd just give up on it as cheap as they are and start over.

If the data is critical and its not working you probably don't have too many options, since you are nowhere anywhere you can
try opening the unit and
(1) applying some torque to the board while plugged in and see if there's a bad connection that you can mechanically manipulate, if it beeps and connects then you got something, you may have to continuously work it or hold it just so to keep it going.
(2) having someone you know good with a super fine tip low wattage solder iron and microelectronics look to touch up any or all solder connections in the USB connector and interface area. Then try plugging it in.
If you do manage to get it to read, then copy the data and pitch it, then get a new one.

I haven't taken any apart lately, but I expect these are two-chip devices nowadays, a USB interface and driver chip and a memory chip. Really important data might be recoverable by removing the memory chip and reinstalling in a similar thumb drive from which you removed its memory chip... but this would be pretty drastic surgery, costing way more than a replacement drive in terms of cost, time skills, and effort.

[lago]

It was a 256Meg flash that cost me sales tax only due to a rebate. I used it to transfer files between my laptop and desktop because I didn't feel like hooking the laptop up to the desktop via ethernet. Didn't lose any critical date but since this was my first experience with one, I wasn't sure just how durable they were.

Ken

[LCHIEN]

It was a 256Meg flash that cost me sales tax only due to a rebate. I used it to transfer files between my laptop and desktop because I didn't feel like hooking the laptop up to the desktop via ethernet. Didn't lose any critical date but since this was my first experience with one, I wasn't sure just how durable they were.

Ken

I would say they are exceptionally reliable compared to floppy disks. Of course, there are 268,435,546 things that can go wrong with a 256M thumb drive... plus another 50 solder joints or so.